Quotes from Anna Akhmatova

Let whoever wants to, relax in the south, And bask in the garden of paradise. Here is the essence of north—and it's autumn I've chosen as this year's friend.

he is rewarded with a form of eternal childhood, with the bounty and vigilance of the stars, the whole world was his inheritance and he shared it with everyone.

But then he touched the flowers With the dry tips of his fingers. "Tell me how men kiss you. Tell me how you kiss.

Dostoyevsky knew a lot but not everything. He, for instance, thought that if you kill a human you'll turn into Raskolnikov. But we know now that one can kill five - ten, one hundred people - and go to the theatre in the evening.

I defend Not my voice, but my silence

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, who suffered death because she chose to turn. - Lot's Wife

And this tenderness was not like That which a certain poet At the beginning of the century called true And, for some reason, quiet. No, not at all— It rang out, like the first waterfall, It crunched like the crust of bluish ice And it prayed with a swanlike voice, And it broke down right before our eyes.

I'm not weeping, I'm not complaining, Happiness is not for me.

Now that you're there, where everything is known—tell me: What else lived in that house besides us?

We are all carousers and loose women here; How unhappy we are together!

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.

We will not drink from the same cup - Neither water nor sweet wine is ours, We will not kiss as the sun goes up Or gaze at the night, on the sill, for hours. I breathe by the moon, you – by the sun

No other looked into her secret eyes. Nobody dared.

He loved three things in this life: Vespers, white peacocks, And old maps of America, Didn't love children crying, Raspberries with tea, Or feminine hysteria ...And I was his wife.

The celebrations Of secret nonmeetings are empty, Unspoken conversations, Unuttered words. Glances that don't intersect Don't know where to come to rest. And only the tears rejoice Because they can flow and flow. Sweetbrier around Moscow, Alas! Somehow it is here ... And all this they will call Love eternal.

No one else was as close and as open, No one else so boiled my blood, Even he, who consigned me to torment, Even he, who caressed and forgot.

Why is it that you still beguile me – As wind, stone, bird – and all the likes? Why is that you smile on me – With sudden summer lightning strikes?

I don't long for anyone, But I don't want, don't want, don't want To know how they kiss each other.

I knew: the gods turned once, in their madness, Men into things, not killing humane senses. You've been turned in to my reminiscences To make eternal the unearthly sadness.

And it's not because I'm tortured Or by some delirium swayed That I conjure up misfortune: It is just my trade.

But I am not allowed to forget The taste of the tears of yesterday.

And if I die, then who Will write my poems to you?

I asked him then: 'What are you after?' 'To be in hell with you,' he said.

It is good here: rustle and snow-crunch... Ski tracks on the splendid finery of the snow; a memory that long ages ago we passed here together.