"I felt sorry for her and I didn't know how to atone for my transgression. I began to comfort her, to seek out reasons for his absence, to advance various arguments, proofs. Nobody could have been easier to deceive than she was at that moment, and indeed at such a time anyone would be happy to hear any sort of consolation whatsoever and is made ever so happy by even the shadow of an excuse."
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Gambler and Other Stories (novellesamling) Utdraget er fra White Nights.