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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
Death
Else
Something
Life
Endings
Beginnings
Recall
Recalls
Rather

More quotes by Anna Akhmatova

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The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.
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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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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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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Wild honey smells of freedom The dust - of sunlight The mouth of a young girl, like a violet But gold - smells of nothing.
Anna Akhmatova
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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.
Anna Akhmatova
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Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed, His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared. His mother stood apart. No other looked into her secret eyes. Nobody dared.
Anna Akhmatova
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This Cruel Age has deflected me.
Anna Akhmatova
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A loss, but who still mourns the breath of one woman, or laments one wife? Though my heart never can forget, how, for one look, she gave up her life.
Anna Akhmatova
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Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.
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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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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And you know, I agree to everything: I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy, Darkness will be light and sin lovely.
Anna Akhmatova
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Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.
Anna Akhmatova
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Real tenderness can't be confused, It's quiet and can't be heard.
Anna Akhmatova
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Song falls silent, music is dumb, But the air burns with their fragrance, And white winter, on its knees, Observes everything with reverent attention.
Anna Akhmatova
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If I can't have love, if I can't find peace, / Give me a bitter glory.
Anna Akhmatova
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Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.
Anna Akhmatova
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But here, in the murk of conflagration, where scarcely a friend is left to know we, the survivors, do not flinch from anything, not from a single blow. Surely the reckoning will be made after the passing of this cloud. We are the people without tears, straighter than you ... more proud.
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