Quotes from Anna Akhmatova

If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up.

If I can't have love, if I can't find peace, / Give me a bitter glory.

Poems are my link with the times, with the new life of my people.

But Fear and the Muse in turn guard the place Where the banished poet has gone And the night that comes with quickened pace Is ignorant of dawn.

Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.

In the fearful years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad. One day somebody "identified" me . . . and whispered in my ear . . . "Can you describe this?" And I said: "Yes, I can."

If you can't give me love and peace,Then give me bitter fame.

No foreign sky protected me,no stranger's wing shielded my face.I stand as witness to the common lot,survivor of that time, that place.

In those years only the dead smiled, glad to be at rest.

In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me… and asked me in a whisper… "Can you describe this?" And I said: "I can."

I should be proud to have my memory graced,but only if the monument be placed…here, where I endured three hundred hoursin line before the implacable iron bars.

Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.

That was a time when only the deadcould smile.

The evening sky is gold and vast. I'm soothed by April's cool caress. You're late. Too many years have passed, - I'm glad to see you, nonetheless. Come closer, sit here by my side, Be gentle with me, treat me kind: This old blue notebook – look inside – I wrote these poems as a child. Forgive me that I felt forsaken, That grief and angst was all I knew. Forgive me that I kept mistaking Too many other men for you.

How the miracle of our meeting Shone there and sang, I didn't want to return From there to anywhere. Happiness instead of duty Was bitter delight to me. Not obliged to speak to anyone, I spoke for a long while. Let passions stifle lovers, Demanding answers, We, my dear, are only souls At the limits of the world.

Regarding myself as a mere echo, Cave-like, unintelligible and nocturnal . . .

You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: "she wanted storms.

This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I never had the chance to meet.

Song falls silent, music is dumb, But the air burns with their fragrance, And white winter, on its knees, Observes everything with reverent attention.

Real tenderness can't be confused, It's quiet and can't be heard.

All that I am hangs by a thread tonight

You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. That day in Moscow, it will all come true, when, for the last time, I take my leave, And hasten to the heights that I have longed for, Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

you are many years late; how happy I am to see you

Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.