Selected Poems Quotes

“You are the only music my life has understood.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“Now the pillow’s

Hot on both sides.

A second candle

Dies, the ravens cry

Endlessly.

No sleep all night,

Too late to think of sleep…

How unbearably white

The blind’s white deep.

Hello, Morning!”
― Anna Akhmatova

“I’ve visited more lands than I’ve set foot on,
I’ve seen more landscapes than I’ve laid eyes on,
I’ve experienced more sensations than all the ones I’ve felt,
Because however much I felt I never felt enough,
And life always pained me, it was always too little, and I was unhappy.

...

I cross my arms on the table, I lay my head on my arms,
And I need to want to cry, but I don’t know where to find the tears.
No matter how hard I try to pity myself, I don’t cry,
My soul is broken under the curved finger that touches it. . .
What will become of me? What will become of me?

...

As it is I stay, I stay . . . I’m the one who always wants to leave
And always stays, always stays, always stays.
Until death I’ll stay, even if I leave I’ll stay, stay, stay . . .

...

Make me human, O night, make me helpful and brotherly.
Only humanitarianly can one live.
Only by loving mankind, actions, the banality of jobs,
Only in this way—alas! —only in this way can one live.
Only this way, O night, and I can never be this way!

I’ve seen all things, and marveled at them all,
But it was too much or too little—I’m not sure which—and I suffered.
I’ve lived every emotion, every thought, every gesture,
And remained as sad as if I’d wanted to live them and failed to.
I’ve loved and hated like everyone else,
But for everyone else this was normal and instinctive,
Whereas for me it was always an exception, a shock, a release valve, a
convulsion.

...

I’m unable to feel, to be human, to reach out
From inside my sad soul to my fellow earthly brothers.
And even were I to feel, I’m unable to be useful, practical, quotidian,
definite,
To have a place in life, a destiny among men,
To have a vocation, a force, a will, a garden,
A reason for resting, a need for recreation,
Something that comes to me directly from nature.”
― Fernando Pessoa