How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"How I would like, along with having a job, working the earth, or practicing medicine, to nurture something lasting, fundamental, to write some scholarly work or something artistic." (9.7.1)
Zhivago is content to have a job and grow his own food. But it's just not enough on its own. He can't help but feel like he needs to be part of something bigger than himself, and he satisfies this urge by trying to produce literature that will live on after he's gone. And as we learn at the end of this book, this is exactly what he accomplishes.
Quote #8
In dreaming of his evening's work, he did not set himself any important goals. A simple passion for ink, an attraction to the pen and the occupation of writing, possessed him. (14.6.2)
When he sits down to write at night, Zhivago doesn't set himself any specific goals. He expresses his passion just by sitting there and writing, hour after hour, until he gets too tired and falls asleep. For him, it's the process of writing that's important, not just the finished product.
Quote #9
In a sweeping script, taking care that the appearance of the writing conveyed the living movement of his hand and did not lose its personality, becoming soulless and dumb, he recalled and wrote out in gradually improving versions, deviating from the previous ones, the most fully formed and memorable poems […] afterwards forgotten, mislaid, and never found again by anyone. (14.8.4)
One night, during a fit of inspiration, Zhivago sits down and writes out some of his best and most memorable poems. As we find out immediately after, though, none of these poems survived after his death, and no one knows what happened to them. Now, why is that? It's probably because of Soviet censorship. Zhivago couldn't publish these poems. Chances are, they were confiscated and destroyed by Soviet officials. Because of that, they'll never see the light of day.