Marina Tsvetaeva Quotes

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

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Wings, Weight, Flight

  59 Copy quote

• An amazing observation: it is precisely for feelings that one needs time, not for thought. ... Feelings, obviously, are more demanding than thought.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Feelings, Needs, Observation

  22 Copy quote

• There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Change, Live Life, Book

  75 Copy quote

• I am a moonbeam, free to go whenever I choose.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Moonbeams

  26 Copy quote

• I refuse to be. In
  the madhouse of the inhuman
  I refuse to live.
  With the wolves of the market place
  I refuse to howl.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Nazism, Rebellion, Howl

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2011). “Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems”, p.159, Carcanet

  30 Copy quote

• Women talk about love and silent about lovers, men - on the contrary: Speaking of mistresses, but are silent about love.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Men, Mistress, Lovers

  33 Copy quote

• I am a shadow’s shade, a lunatic, perhaps,
  Of two dark moons.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Dark, Moon, Two

  29 Copy quote

• However much you feed a wolf, it always looks to the forest. We are all wolves of the dense forest of Eternity.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Looks, Forests, Eternity

  23 Copy quote

• Think about me lightly,
  think of me, and forget.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Thinking, Forget, Think Of Me

  29 Copy quote

• My favorite mode of communication is in the world beyond: a dream, to see in a dream. My second favorite is correspondence.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Dream, Communication, World

  30 Copy quote

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

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Book, Writing, Suffering

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2017). “Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922”, p.154, New York Review of Books

  29 Copy quote

• What is the main thing in love? to know and to hide. To know about the one you love and to hide that you love. At times the hiding (shame) overpowers the knowing (passion). The passion for the hidden - the passion for the revealed.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Love, Passion, Knowing

  "The House at Old Pimen". Essay by Marina Tsvetaeva, ch. 2, 1934.

  31 Copy quote

• Meanings are translatable. Words are untranslatable… More briefly – a word is translatable, its sound is not.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Sound

  27 Copy quote

• And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we who never let each other sleep above it.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Sleep, Earth

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2011). “Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems”, p.31, Carcanet

  24 Copy quote

• No one has ever stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Women, Book, Rivers

  29 Copy quote

• In this most Christian of worlds all poets are Jews.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Christian, World, Poet

  22 Copy quote

• For the spell is older than experience. For the tale is older than the record.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Records, Tales, Spells

  19 Copy quote

• How quiet the writing, how noisy the printing.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Writing, Quiet, Printing

  21 Copy quote

• My desk, most loyal friend thank you. You've been with me on every road I've taken. My scar and my protection.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Thank You, Taken, Office

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2011). “Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems”, p.148, Carcanet

  17 Copy quote

• After a sleepless night the body gets weaker, It becomes dear and not yours - and nobody's. Just like a seraph you smile to people And arrows moan in the slow arteries. After a sleepless night the arms get weaker And deeply equal to you are the friend and foe. Smells like Florence in the frost, and in each Sudden sound is the whole rainbow. Tenderly light the lips, and the shadow's golden Near the sunken eyes. Here the night has sparked This brilliant likeness - and from the dark night Only just one thing - the eyes - are growing dark.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Eye, Dark, Night

  22 Copy quote

• Don't you know no one can escape the power of creatures reaching out with breath alone?

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Reaching, Reach Out, Creatures

  21 Copy quote

• What shall I do, singer and first-born, in a world where the deepest black is grey, and inspiration is kept in a thermos? with all this immensity in a measured world?

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Inspiration, Black, World

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2011). “Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems”, p.86, Carcanet

  22 Copy quote

• The one that burned the hottest is the first to die.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Firsts, Burned, Hottest

  15 Copy quote

• What is this gypsy passion for separation, this readiness to rush off when we've just met? My head rests in my hands as I realize, looking into the night that no one turning over our letters has yet understood how completely and how deeply faithless we are, which is to say: how true we are to ourselves.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Passion, Night, Hands

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2011). “Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems”, p.32, Carcanet

  19 Copy quote

• I opened my veins. Unstoppably life 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 nourish the rushes unstoppably without cure, gushes poetry.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Black, Veins, Earth

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2011). “Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems”, p.142, Carcanet

  13 Copy quote

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