Anna Akhmatova Quotes - Page 3

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• We thought: we're poor, we have nothing, but when we started losing one after the other so each day became remembrance day, we started composing poems about God's great generosity and our former riches.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Generosity, Remembrance, Each Day

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (1989). “Selected Poems”, Dufour Editions

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• But here, in the murk of conflagration, where scarcely a friend is left to know we, the survivors, do not flinch from anything, not from a single blow. Surely the reckoning will be made after the passing of this cloud. We are the people without tears, straighter than you ... more proud.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Blow, Clouds, People

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.75, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Give me bitter years of sickness, Suffocation, insomnia, fever, Take my child and my lover, And my mysterious gift of song This I pray at your liturgy After so many tormented days, So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia Might become a cloud of glorious rays.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Song, Children, Insomnia

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (1993). “A stranger to heaven and earth: poems of Anna Akhmatova”, Shambhala Pubns

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• That was when the ones who smiled Were the dead, glad to be at rest.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Glad

  "Review: Anna Of All The Russias" by Olga Grushin, www.nytimes.com. March 17, 2006.

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• This Cruel Age has deflected me.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Age

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.129, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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."

  Anna Akhmatova

  Years, Waiting In Line, One Day

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.99, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed,
  His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared.
  His mother stood apart. No other looked
  into her secret eyes. Nobody dared.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Mother, Stones, Beloved

  "Crucifixion". Poem by Anna Akhmatova, 1940-1943.

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

  Anna Akhmatova

  Recalls, Knows

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.129, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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

  Anna Akhmatova

  Song, Fall, Winter

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

  Anna Akhmatova

  Song, Courage, Children

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.125, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• ... 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.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Stars, Childhood, Inheritance

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• This land, although not my native land, Will be remembered forever. And the sea's lightly iced, Unsalty water. The sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk, The air is heady, like wine, And the rosy body of the pines Is naked in the sunset hour. And the sunset itself on such waves of ether That I just can't comprehend Whether it is the end of the day, the end of the world, Or the mystery of mysteries in me again.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Wine, Sunset, Air

  5 Copy quote

• And it seemed to me that there were fires Flying till dawn without number And I never found out things-those Strange eyes of his-what colour? Everything trembling and singing and Were you my enemy or my friend, Winter was it or summer?

  Anna Akhmatova

  Summer, Eye, Winter

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Death, Women, Heart

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.77, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don't break my heart, don't ring out.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Song, Heart, World

  "'Now no one will listen to songs...' ('Plantain')". Poem by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Richard McKane, 1921.

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

  Anna Akhmatova

  Memories, Iron, Three

  7 Copy quote

• Natural thunder heralds the wetness of fresh water
  high clouds
  to quench the thirst of fields gone dry and parched,
  a messenger of blessed rain,
  but this was as dry as hell must be.
  My distraught perception refused
  to believe it, because of the insane
  suddenness with which it sounded, swelled and hit,
  and how casually it came
  to murder my child.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Children, Rain, Believe

  "The First Long Range Artillery Fire On Leningrad". Poem by Anna Akhmatova, 1993.

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• The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Stones, Tests, Breasts

  "Requiem". Poem by Anna Akhmatova, 1963.

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• Wild honey smells of freedom The dust - of sunlight The mouth of a young girl, like a violet But gold - smells of nothing.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Girl, Dust, Smell

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (1989). “Poem without a hero and selected poems”, Field Translations Series

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• 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.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Eye, Ice, Waterfalls

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• A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Mother, Father, Angel

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.113, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

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

  Anna Akhmatova

  Unhappy, Together, Loose Women

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• No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Sky, Wings, People

  "Requiem". Poem by Anna Akhmatova, 1963.

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