“Wings are freedom only when they are wide open in flight. On one's back they are a heavy weight.”

“One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk.”

“Your name is a -- bird in my handa piece of -- ice on the tongueone single movement of the lips.Your name is: five signs,a ball caught in flight, asilver bell in the moutha stone, cast in a quiet poolmakes the splash of your name, andthe sound is in the clatter ofnight hooves, loud as a thunderclapor it speaks straight into my forehead,shrill as the click of a cocked gun.Your name -- how impossible, itis a kiss in the eyes onmotionless eyelashes, chill and sweet.Your name is a kiss of snowa gulp of icy spring water, blueas a dove. About your name is: sleep.”

“The forbidden cabinet. The forbidden fruit. That fruit is—a volume, a huge blue-lilac volume with a gold inscription slantwise: Collected Works of A.S. Pushkin. I read the fat Pushkin in the cabinet with my nose in the book and on the shelf, almost in darkness and almost right up against it and even a little bit suffocated by his weight that came right into the throat, and almost blinded by the nearness of the tiny letters. I read Pushkin right into the chest and right into the brain.”

“I opened my veins. Unstoppablylife spurts out with no remedy.Now I set out bowls and plates.Every bowl will be shallow.Every plate will be small.And overflowing their rims,into the black earth, to nourishthe rushes unstoppablywithout cure, gushespoetry ...”

“What is this gypsy passion for separation, thisreadiness to rush off when we've just met?My head rests in my hands as Irealize, looking into the nightthat no one turning over our letters hasyet understood how completely andhow deeply faithless we are, which isto say: how true we are to ourselves.”

“Old men, old men, old men. Medals, medals, medals. Not a brow without a furrow, not a breast without a star. My brother and husband are uniquely-young here. The grouping of young Grand Dukes doesn't count because a grouping is just what they are: a marble bas-relief. Today the whole old-age of Russia seems to have flowed into this place in homage to the eternal youth of Greece. A living lesson of history and philosophy: this is what time does with people, this is what it does--with gods. This is what time does with a man, this is what (a glance at the statues) art does. And, the last lesson: this is what time does with a man; this is what a man does with time. But because of my youth I don't think about that, I feel only a cold shudder. ("The Opening of the Museum")”