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It would be difficult to find another man who lived so entirely for his duties. It is not enough to say that Akakiy laboured with zeal: no, he laboured with love. In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable employment.

This quote appears at the beginning of the story and describes how much Akakievitch loves his work. He is satisfied copying official documents, and he does so with enthusiasm and even love. This all-consuming dedication shows how Akakievitch works for the sake of work and nothing else. While Akakievitch is singled out here by the narrator, it may be inferred that others in Gogol’s St. Petersburg approach their work with similarly narrow-minded enthusiasm. However, everyone but Akakievitch seems to work for social advancement through their occupations.

But Akakiy Akakievitch saw in all things the clean, even strokes of his written lines; and only when a horse thrust his nose, from some unknown quarter, over his shoulder, and sent a whole gust of wind down his neck from his nostrils, did he observe that he was not in the middle of a page, but in the middle of the street.

This quote near the beginning of the story describes just how absent-minded Akakievitch becomes when he is lost in his work. He sees everything in the world as words he is copying, and he mistakes the middle of the street for the middle of a page. He is rarely shaken from this reverie. Only extreme interruptions can awake him from his obsession with work.

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