134 Quotes by Louise Glück

Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.

Why love what you will lose?There is nothing else to love.

I think here I will leave you. It has come to seemthere is no perfect ending.Indeed, there are infinite endings.Or perhaps, once one begins,there are only endings.

I don’t need your praiseto survive. I was here first, before you were here, beforeyou ever planted a garden.And I’ll be here when only the sun and moonare left, and the sea, and the wide field.I will constitute the field.

The master said You must write what you see.But what I see does not move me.The master answered Change what you see.

The songs have changed, but really they are still quite beautiful.They have been concentrated in a smaller space, the space of the mind.They are dark, now, with desolation and anguish.And yet the notes recur. They hover oddlyin anticipation of silence.The ear gets used to them.The eye gets used to disappearances.You will not be spared, nor will what you love be spared.

Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events.

This silence is my companion now. I ask: of what did my soul die? and the silence answersif your soul died, whose lifeare you living and when did you become that person?

My memory is like a basement filled with old papers: nothing ever changes.