Anna Akhmatova Short Quotes

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But I warn you,
I am living for the last time.

Anna Akhmatova
Already madness lifts its wing
to cover half my soul.

Anna Akhmatova
It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.

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

Anna Akhmatova
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.

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

Anna Akhmatova
All has been looted, betrayed, sold;
black death's wing flashed ahead.

Anna Akhmatova
In the young century's cool nursery,
In its chequered silence, I was born.

Anna Akhmatova
There is a sacred, secret line in loving which attraction and even passion cannot cross.

Anna Akhmatova
The triumphs of a mysterious non-meeting are desolate ones; unspoken phrases, silent words.

Anna Akhmatova
Dread. Bottomless dread...
I am that shadow on the threshold
defending my remnant peace.

Anna Akhmatova
I hear always the sad voices
of summer
passing like red winged birds
over the high grass

Anna Akhmatova
The silvery tree opens
to an empty sky —
maybe it is better
that I am not your husband.

Anna Akhmatova
There is no death, each of us knows —
it's banal to say.
I'll leave it to others to explain.

Anna Akhmatova
Prince Charming, prince of the mockers —
compared with him the foulest of sinners
is grace incarnate...

Anna Akhmatova
That woman I once was,
in a black agate necklace,
I do not wish to meet again
till the Day of Judgement.

Anna Akhmatova
I go forth to seek —
To seek and claim the lovely magic garden
Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.

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

Anna Akhmatova
Thinking of the sun causes quick
beating of my heart —
snowy weather comes on the wind
lightly drifting.

Anna Akhmatova
Thinking of the sun makes
my heart beat faster — too fast!
What darkness!
From this night winter begins.

Anna Akhmatova
Now everything is clear.
I admit my defeat. The tongue
of my ravings in my ear
is the tongue of a stranger.

Anna Akhmatova
But lifting his dry hand
He lightly touched the flowers:
"Tell me how men kiss you,
Tell me how you kiss men."

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

Anna Akhmatova
Stars of death stood over us,
and innocent Russia squirmed
under the bloody boots,
under the wheels of black Marias.

Anna Akhmatova
No use to fall down on my knees
and beg for mercy's sake.
Nothing I counted mine, out of my life,
is mine to take...

Anna Akhmatova
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
Today I have much work to do:
I must finally kill my memory,
I must, so my soul can turn to stone,
I must learn to live again.

Anna Akhmatova
From childhood I have been afraid
of mummers. It always seemed
an extra shadow
without face or name
had slipped among them...

Anna Akhmatova
This woman is sick to her marrow-bone,
this woman is utterly alone,
with husband dead, with son away
in jail. Pray for me. Pray.

Anna Akhmatova
I don't know if you're alive or dead.
Can you on earth be sought,
Or only when the sunsets fade
Be mourned serenely in my thought?

Anna Akhmatova