- Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: Yes, the oak is right. A thousand times right. Spring is a delusion. The young are deceived by it, but not us. Our life is finished, finished. Just leave me alone and let me live it out. Yes, the oak is right.
- Count Rostov: Do you know what I thought of doing?
- Countess Rostova: What?
- Count Rostov: I thought of going to Petersburg and asking for a governmental post. Well, that would at least bring in a salary.
- Countess Rostova: Ilya, darling. Work?
- Count Rostov: Well, why not? Other people do it.
- Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: What is it, this effect she has on me? I could weep. For what? For Lise, for past love, for lost illusions? I don't know. When I look at her, she makes me feel as if my life is not yet over. Pierre was right. In order to be happy, one must believe in the possibility of happiness. Ah, that's it. She makes me believe. She makes me believe in the possibility of happiness. Yes, that's it. That's why I could weep. Weep.
- Natasha Rostova: Boris is narrow, like the dining room clock.
- Countess Rostova: Oh, what nonsense.
- Natasha Rostova: Oh, he is. Can't you see? Narrow and pale gray. Now, Bezukhov is blue. Dark blue and red and square. Oh, stop it. Oh, stop giggling, Mama. I'm serious.
- Countess Rostova: You flirt with him too.
- Natasha Rostova: No, I don't, since I found out he was a freemason. But Prince Andrei, he's white and silver, and he shines in the sun.
- Piotr: What a beautiful spring day, Your Excellency. How mild it is. Everything's coming out so early. Amazing how they respond to a little warmth. Only that old oak wants to sleep on. Stubborn things, oak trees. Never want to wake up. Never want to face the summer again. Look at him. Same old tale, he says. Spring and love and happiness. Don't believe in it. It's all stuff and nonsense. Leave me alone. I've seen it all before.
- Countess Rostova: What did he talk to you about tonight?
- Natasha Rostova: I can't remember. Everything he says to me goes out of my head the minute he said it.
- Countess Rostova: Well, he's not the only one you don't listen to.
- Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: And for her I might just as well not exist. I wonder. I wonder if that oak was really right. In a few weeks he'll be spreading his leaves again. Even he. He'll join the rest of them. Spring, love, and happiness, the same old tale. But, it is a beautiful tale. Life is not over at 31. It's not enough to know what I have in me. Everyone else must know it too. Pierre, that young girl who wanted to fly away, all of them must learn to know me, so that my life is not lived for myself alone, but maybe, reflected in them all, that they, and I, may live in harmony together.
- Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: You have guests?
- Pierre Bezukhov: No, Helene has guests. She has become a brilliant hostess. Haven't you heard?
- Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: I'm not keeping you?
- Pierre Bezukhov: No. I left them an hour ago. They look on me as some kind of eccentric lodger she had to take with the house. Let them. She has become une femme charmant, as spiritual as she is beautiful. People sit at her feet and listen to the wise and witty sayings that drop from her lips. I never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of man.
- Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: I never thought this intensity was in my range of feeling. I loved Lise, but I'm in torment and agony, and I wouldn't exchange it for anything in the world.
- Pierre Bezukhov: She's a treasure, that girl. A rare spirit. She is life. She is all life. You can hear it in her voice. You can see it in the way she walks and dances. A boundless zest for living. The spring bubbling up from the earth, virgin, clear, and unclouded. The life force. The vital spirit that dims in so many of us.