121 Quotes by Anne Michaels

Sometimes the body experiences a revelation because it has abandoned every other possibility.

Like other ghosts, she whispers; not for me to join her, but so that, when I'm close enough, she can push me back into the world.

Truth grows gradually in us, like a musician who plays a piece again and again until suddenly he hears it for the first time

Miss Petitfour loved the little pictures, each in its own serrated frame and each seeming to tell it's own little story.

Because the moon feels loved, she lets our eyesfollow her across the field, steppingfrom her clothes, strewn silkglinting in furrows. Feeling loved, the moon lovesto be looked at, swimmingall night across the river.

Not long after our final lesson, on one of our Sundays at the lake, my father and I were walking along the shore when he noticed a small rock shaped like a bird. When he picked it up, I saw the quick gleam of satisfaction in his face and felt in an instant that I had less power to please him than a stone.

When a man dies, his secrets bond like crystals, like frost on a window. His last breath obscures the glass.

Destruction doesn't create a vacuum, it simply transforms presence into absence.

The tombstones smashed in Hebrew cemeteries and plundered for Polish sidewalks; today bored citizens, staring at their feet while waiting for a bus, can still read the inscriptions.