Quotes by Anna Akhmatova

“As the future ripens in the past,so the past rots in the future --a terrible festival of dead leaves.””

“I myself, from the very beginning,Seemed to myself like someone's dream or deliriumOr a reflection in someone else's mirror,Without flesh, without meaning, without a name.Already I knew the list of crimesThat I was destined to commit.””

“Your voice is wild and simple.You are untranslatableInto any one tongue.””

“The whole time I was hoping my silence would fit yours and exclamation marks would gently float across time and space so that boundaries would be crossed; the whole time I was praying you would read my eyes and understand what I was never able to understand. See, we were never about butterflies. We’ve always been about burning stars. All about us is unearthly and radiant.””

“You do not know just what you've been forgiven.””

“Forgive me, that I manage badly,Manage badly but live gloriously,That I leave traces of myself in my songs,That I appeared to you in waking dreams.””

“The word landed with a stony thud Onto my still-beating breast. Nevermind, I was prepared, I will manage with the rest. I have a lot of work to do today; I need to slaughter memory, Turn my living soul to stone Then teach myself to live again. . . But how. The hot summer rustles Like a carnival outside my window; I have long had this premonition Of a bright day and a deserted house. ””

“Rising from the past, my shadowIs running in silence to meet me.””

“And you know, I agree to everything:I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy,Darkness will be light and sin lovely.””

“I know beginnings, I know endings too,and life-in-death, and something elseI'd rather not recall just now.””

“I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love””

“We learned not to meet anymore,We don't raise our eyes to one another,But we ourselves won't guaranteeWhat could happen to us in an hour.””