Vladimir Mayakovsky > Quotes

“A line is a fuse
that's lit.
The line smolders,
the rhyme explodes—
and by a stanza
a city
is blown to bits.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Listen!
If stars are lit
It means there is someone who needs it,
It means someone wants them to be,
That someone deems those specks of spit
Magnificent!”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Listen!

“Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night.
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“If you like
I'll be furious flesh elemental,
or- changing to tones that the sunset arouses- if you like-
I'll be extraordinary gentle,
not a man but - a cloud in trousers.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, The Bedbug and Selected Poetry

“Formerly I believed books were made like this: a poet came, lightly opened his lips, and the inspired fool burst into song – if you please! But it seems, before they can launch a song, poets must tramp for days with callused feet, and the sluggish fish of the imagination flounders softly in the slush of the heart. And while, with twittering rhymes, they boil a broth of loves and nightingales, the tongueless street merely writhes for lack of something to shout or say”
― Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, The Bedbug and Selected Poetry

“But I
have tamed
myself
I have stomped
on the throat
of my own song”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“On I’ll pass,
dragging my huge love behind me.
On what
feverish night, deliria-ridden,
by what Goliaths was I begot –
I, so big
and by no one needed?”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Gentle souls!
You play your love on the violin.
The crude ones play it on the drums violently.
But can you turn yourselves inside out, like me
And become just two lips entirely?”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Our planet is poorly equipped for delight.
One must snatch gladness from the days that are.
In this life
it's not difficult to die.
To make life
is more difficult by far.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“The love boat has crashed against the everyday
You and I, we are quits
And there is no use listing mutual hurts, sorrows, and pains.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Selected Poems

“You entered,
Abrupt like “Take it!”,
Mauling suede gloves, you tarried,
And said:
“You know,-
I’m soon getting married.”

Get married then.
It’s all right,
I can handle it.
You see - I’m calm, of course!
Like the pulse
Of a corpse.

Remember?
You used to say:
“Jack London,
Money,
Love and ardour,”--
I saw one thing only:
You were La Gioconda,
Which had to be stolen!

And someone stole you.

Again in love, I shall start gambling,
With fire illuminating the arch of my eyebrows.
And why not?
Sometimes, the homeless ramblers
Will seek to find shelter in a burnt down house!

You’re mocking me?
“You’ve fewer emeralds of madness
than a beggar kopecks, there’s no disproving this!”
But remember
Pompeii came to end thus
When somebody teased Vesuvius!

Hey!
Gentlemen!
You care for
Sacrilege,
Crime
And war.
But have you seen
The frightening terror
Of my face
When
It’s
Perfectly calm?

And I feel-
“I”
Is too small to fit me.
Someone inside me is getting smothered.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Love
for us
is no paradise of arbors —
to us
love tells us, humming,
that the stalled motor
of the heart
has started to work
again.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Men, crumpled like bed-sheets in hospitals,
And women, battered like overused proverbs.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“There’s no grandfatherly fondness in me,
There are no gray hairs in my soul!
Shaking the world with my voice and grinning,
I pass you by, - handsome,
Twentytwoyearold.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“If you prefer,
I'll be pure raging meat,
or if you prefer,
as the sky changes tone,
I'll be absolutely tender,
not a man, but a cloud in trousers!”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“а самое страшное
видели -
лицо мое,
когда
я
абсолютно спокоен?”
― Владимир Маяковский, Облако в штанах

“Tomorrow you’ll forget
that I have crowned you,
that I burned my flowering soul with love,
and the whirling carnival of trivial days
will ruffle the pages of my books…
Would the dry leaves of my words
force you to a stop
gasping for air?
At least let me
pave with a parting endearment
your retreating path.

—Vladimir Mayakovsky, from “Lilichka! (Instead of a Letter),” Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry Of Vladimir Mayakovsky. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform April 18, 2008)”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry

“Lilichka! (Instead of a letter)"

Tobacco smoke eats the air away.
The room,--
a chapter from Kruchenykh's Inferno.
Recall,--
by the window,
that day,
I caressed you ecstatically, with fervor.
Here you sit now,
with your heart in iron armor.
In a day,
you'll scold me perhaps
and tell me to leave.
Frenzied, the trembling arm in the gloomy parlor
will hardly be able to fit the sleeve.
I'll rush out
and hurl my body into the street,--
distraught,
lashed by despair
and sadness.
There's no need for this,
my darling,
my sweet.
Let's part tonight and end this madness.
Either way,
my love is
an arduous weight,
hanging on you
wherever you flee.
Let me bellow out in the final complaint
all of my heartbroken misery.
A laboring bull, if he had enough,
will leave
and find cool water to lie in.
But for me,
there's no sea
except for your love,--
from which even tears won't earn me some quiet.
If an elephant wants to relax, he'll lie,
pompous, outside in the sun-baked dune,
Except for your love,
there's no sun
in the sky
and I don't even know where you are and with whom.
If you thus tormented another poet,
he
would trade in his love for money and fame.
But
nothing sounds as precious to me
as the ringing sound of your darling name.
I won't drink poison,
or jump to demise,
or pull the trigger to take my own life.
Except for your eyes,
no blade can control me,
no sharpened knife.
Tomorrow you'll forget
that it was I who crowned you,
who burned out the blossoming soul with love
and the days will form a whirling carnival
that will ruffle my manuscripts and lift them above...
Will the dry autumn leaves of my sentences
cause you to pause,
breathing hard?

Let me
pave a path with the final tenderness
for your footsteps as you depart.

(1916)”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry

“They stood brow to brow, brown to white, black to black, he supporting her elbows, she playing her limp light fingers over his collarbone, and how he "ladored,"he said, the dark aroma of her hair blending with crushed lily stalks, Turkish cigarettes and the lassitude that comes from "lass." "No, no, don't," she said, I must wash, quick-quick, Ada must wash; but for yet another immortal moment they stood embraced in the hushed avenue, enjoying as they had never enjoyed before, the "happy-forever" feeling at the end of never-ending fairy tales.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Maria!
How can I fit a tender word into bulging ears?”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Emotions are steep like cliffs, -
please,
step away farther.
Farther
step away, please.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry

“حيثما سأموت، سأموت وأنا أغني.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Soon, sampled by everyone,
Stale and pallid,
I’ll come out
And mumble toothlessly
That today I’m
“Remarkably candid.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“It must be a little love, - a baby, sort of,
It shies away when the cars honk and hiss,
But adores the bells on the horse-tram.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Vorrei essere tagliente come un eccomi”
― Vladimir Majakovskij

“Che il tempo esploda dietro di noi
come una selva di proiettili.
Ai vecchi giorni il vento riporti
solo un garbuglio di capelli.
Per l'allegria
il pianeta nostro è poco attrezzato.
Bisogna strappare la gioia
ai giorni futuri.
In questa vita non è difficile morire.
Vivere è di gran lunga più difficile.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“To his Own Beloved Self
The Author Dedicates
These Lines"

Six.
Ponderous. The chimes of a clock.
“Render unto Caesar ... render unto God...”
But where’s
someone like me to dock?
Where’11 I find a lair?

Were I
like the ocean of oceans little,
on the tiptoes of waves I’d rise,
I’d strain, a tide, to caress the moon.
Where to find someone to love
of my size,
the sky too small for her to fit in?

Were I poor
as a multimillionaire,
it’d still be tough.
What’s money for the soul? –
thief insatiable.
The gold
of all the Californias isn’t enough
for my desires’ riotous horde.

I wish I were tongue-tied,
like Dante or Petrarch,
able to fire a woman’s heart,
reduce it to ashes with verse-filled pages!
My words
and my love
form a triumphal arch:
through it, in all their splendour,
leaving no trace, will pass
the inamoratas of all the ages!

Were I
as quiet as thunder,
how I’d wail and whine!
One groan of mine
would start the world’s crumbling cloister shivering.
And if
I’d end up by roaring
with all of its power of lungs and more –
the comets, distressed, would wring their hands
and from the sky’s roof
leap in a fever.

If I were dim as the sun,
night I’d drill
with the rays of my eyes,
and also
all by my lonesome,
radiant self
build up the earth’s shriveled bosom.

On I’ll pass,
dragging my huge love behind me.
On what
feverish night, deliria-ridden,
by what Goliaths was I begot –
I, so big
and by no one needed?”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“Here's how I used to think
you made a book:
a poet comes along,
mouth half open, inspired,
then suddenly the idiot bursts into song -
fancy that!”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Пощёчина общественному вкусу

“Sing, of delight drink deep,
Drain spring by cups, not by thimbles.
Heart step up your beat!
Our breasts be the brass of cymbals.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Poesía