So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me - a long, long road without a goal.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!

Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there'll come a time when you'll start asking just for a crust.

In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!

I walked in the meadows of green grieving for my life.

What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.