Lermontov became a soldier, escaping from her grandmother and her troublesome love. He exchanged the pen, which is the key to one's soul, for a pistol, which is the key to the gates of the world.

The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.

terrible are the wounds of a murdered dream

In Irena’s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and at the same time the curtain of oblivion wraps her lewdness in an all-concealing darkness. As if a poet were writing his greatest poem with ink that instantly disappears.

Poetry never plays a more important role than it does during revolutionary periods; poetry gave the revolution its voice and in return the revolution liberated poetry from isolation; the poet now knows he is being heard by the people, especially young people; for youth, poetry and revolution are one and the same.

I'd never recited poetry to anyone before; I've never done it since. I have a highly sensitive, built-in fuse mechanism that keeps me from opening up too far, from revealing my feelings, and reciting poetry makes me feel as though I'm talking about my feelings and standing on one leg at the same time.

Every situation is of man's making and can only contain what man contains.

The genius of lyric poetry is the genius of inexperience.

El sentido de la poesía no consiste en deslumbrarnos con una idea sorprendente, sino en hacer que un instante del ser sea inolvidable y digno de una nostalgia insoportable.