Elin > Elin's Quotes

“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire

“How slow life is, how violent hope is.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire

“Joy came always after pain.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire

“Without poets, without artists... everything would fall apart into chaos. There would be no more seasons, no more civilizations, no more thought, no more humanity, no more life even; and impotent darkness would reign forever. Poets and artists together determine the features of their age, and the future meekly conforms to their edit.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire, Selected Writings

“I sing the joy of wandering and the pleasure of the wanderer's death”
― Apollinaire

“People quickly grow accustomed to being the slaves of mystery.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire, The Cubist Painters

“I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire

“I had the courage to look backward
The ghosts of my days”
― Guillaume Apollinaire

“Ο Νόμος που είμαι δεν θα με υποτάξει: The Law I am will not subdue me.”
― Odysseus Elytis, Μαρία Νεφέλη

“Your mouth speaks with four hundred roses, beats the trees, overwhelms the entire earth, pours the first shiver into the body.”
― Odysseus Elytis

“don't fear what you are destined to suffer.”
― Odysseus Elytis

“Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.”
― Howard Phillips Lovecraft

“From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
― Howard Phillips Lovecraft, The Nameless City

“Never Explain Anything”
― H.P. Lovecraft

“Willing or not, we are all hostages of the joy of which we deprive ourselves. Here springs love’s pre-eternal sadness.”
― Odysseus Elytis, Open Papers - Selected Essays

“This is why I write. Because poetry begins where death is robbed of the last word.”
― Odysseus Elytis, Open Papers - Selected Essays

“Sweet mother, I cannot weave –
slender Aphrodite has overcome me
with longing for a girl.”
― Sappho, Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works

“What cannot be said will be wept.”
― Sappho

“May I write words more naked than flesh,
stronger than bone, more resilient than
sinew, sensitive than nerve.”
― Sappho

“In the crooks of your body, I find my religon.”
― Sappho

“There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse.”
― Sappho

“What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.”
― Sappho

“I have not had one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love

"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared

"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck

"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them

"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song...”
― Sappho

“]
]you will remember
]for we in our youth
did these things

yes many and beautiful things
]
]
]”
― Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

“Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal”
― Sappho

“She who loves roses must be patient and not cry out when she is pierced by thorns.”
― Sappho

“Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.”
― Sappho

“Because I prayed
this word:
I want”
― Sappho

“I simply want to be dead.
Weeping she left me

with many tears and said this:
Oh how badly things have turned out for us.
Sappho, I swear, against my will I leave you.

And I answered her:
Rejoice, go and
remember me. For you know how we cherished you.”
― Sappho , If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho