217 Quotes by Anna Akhmatova

Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue.

Though you are three times more beautiful than angels, Though you are the sister of the river willows, I will kill you with my singing, Without spilling your blood on the ground. Not touching you with my hand, Not giving you one glance, I will stop loving you, But with your unimaginable groans I will finally slake my thirst. From her, who wandered the earth before me, Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame, From her, who still exists in the ether— From her you will set me free.

Forgive me, that I manage badly, Manage badly but live gloriously, That I leave traces of myself in my songs, That I appeared to you in waking dreams.

Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.

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

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."

My shadow serves as the friend I crave

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

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