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

Anna Akhmatova

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Anna Akhmatova
Age: 76 †
Born: 1889
Born: June 23
Died: 1966
Died: March 5
Author
Literary Critic
Literary Scholar
Poet
Translator
Writer
Odesa
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko
Anna Achmatova
Anna Ahmatova
Anna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova
Beginnings
Recall
Recalls
Rather
Death
Else
Something
Life
Endings

More quotes by Anna Akhmatova

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A land not mine, still forever memorable, the waters of its ocean chill and fresh. Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk, and the air drunk, like wine, late sun lays bare the rosy limbs of the pinetrees. Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.
Anna Akhmatova
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A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me.
Anna Akhmatova
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Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don't break my heart, don't ring out.
Anna Akhmatova
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It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.
Anna Akhmatova
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Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, Who suffered death because she chose to turn.
Anna Akhmatova
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All that I am hangs by a thread tonight
Anna Akhmatova
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Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground whisk the lamps away.
Anna Akhmatova
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You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.
Anna Akhmatova
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This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I never had the chance to meet.
Anna Akhmatova
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As the future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future -- a terrible festival of dead leaves.
Anna Akhmatova
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We thought: we're poor, we have nothing, but when we started losing one after the other so each day became remembrance day, we started composing poems about God's great generosity and our former riches.
Anna Akhmatova
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We are all carousers and loose women here How unhappy we are together!
Anna Akhmatova
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Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.
Anna Akhmatova
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Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.
Anna Akhmatova
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All has been looted, betrayed, sold black death's wing flashed ahead.
Anna Akhmatova
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It is unbearably painful for the soul to love silently.
Anna Akhmatova
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How the miracle of our meeting Shone there and sang, I didn't want to return From there to anywhere. Happiness instead of duty Was bitter delight to me. Not obliged to speak to anyone, I spoke for a long while. Let passions stifle lovers, Demanding answers, We, my dear, are only souls At the limits of the world.
Anna Akhmatova
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No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.
Anna Akhmatova
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I am not one of those who left the land to the mercy of its enemies. Their flattery leaves me cold, my songs are not for them to praise.
Anna Akhmatova
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You do not know just what you've been forgiven.
Anna Akhmatova