Anna Akhmatova

"I have taught myself to live simply and wisely, to look at the sky and pray to God, and to wander long before evening to tire my superfluous flesh."

"This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from its course."

"And the stone word fell on my still living breast."

"I am not one of those who left the land to the mercy of its enemies. Their flattery leaves me cold."

"When a man is just beginning to live, he sometimes thinks he is dying."

"Love is either the shrinking of the soul or its temporary transformation."

"How many stones have been cast at me, yet I did not die."

"I learned that there exist different kinds of loneliness."

"No, and I won't ask for pity - I've learned to do without that."

"I am a string on God's instrument."

"We age and change and grow in understanding bit by bit."

"To know the names of things is to know things themselves."

"Everything promised itself to me then."

"I know the truth - all that trumpets speak of, all that gold dreams of, is a sham."

"My land is so beautiful. I cannot leave it, though my heart aches."

"The word brought down the thunder from the sky."

"Some women live their whole lives in the kitchen. Others, in the backyard."

"Your name - bird in my hand, piece of ice on my tongue."

"I will come back a beggar, and knock at the window for charity."

"How I want to hold you, if only for a moment."

"Anguish and love are sisters."

"I know the magic of words. But now words are so overused."

"The heart is burdened with more sorrow than is possible to contain."

"Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it."

"In my country they do not laugh at poets."

"I learned that strength is not about force."

"The secret of patience is doing something else in the meantime."

"But in my chest there lived a different heart."

"All the worst things happen to people in times of peace."

"I will come back to you as a shadow comes when the sun sets."