Quotes from Averno

Louise Glück ·  79 pages

Rating: (1.9K votes)


“I think I can remember
being dead. Many times, in winter,
I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him,
how can I endure the earth?”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno


“Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno


“I am tired of having hands
she said
I want wings —

But what will you do without your hands
to be human?

I am tired of human
she said
I want to live on the sun —”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno


“It is true that there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno


“The assignment was to fall in love.
The details were up to you.
The second part was
to include in the poem certain words,
words drawn from a specific text
on another subject altogether.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno



“The sound of the sea— just memory now.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno


“You get on a train, you disappear.

You write your name on the window, you disappear.

There are places like this everywhere,
places you enter as a young girl
from which you never return.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno


“I fell asleep in a river, I woke in a river,
of my mysterious
failure to die I can tell you
nothing, neither
who saved me nor for what cause—”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno


About the author

Louise Glück
Born place: in New York City, The United States
Born date April 22, 1943
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Despite herself, a strange tingling took hold of her body. She instinctively leaned closer to him, inhaling his masculine scent of spices, earth, and something more, something deeper and more potent. Something feral and primitive, she realized. It should have scared her away but she found herself having to fight the strange urge to move closer, to touch him, to allow that scent to cover her completely. Her traitorous fingers twitched with the sudden urge to feel him.”
― Erica Stevens, quote from Captured


“He will not succeed in this," Taran said. "Somehow, we must find a way to escape. We dare not lose hope."
"I agree absolutely," Fflewddur answered. "Your general idea is excellent; it's only the details that are lacking...”
― Lloyd Alexander, quote from The Black Cauldron


“And when Aaron called out for him just then, right on time, there was something beautiful about that, too, the way a little kid needed you for everything and wasn't afraid to say so.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Little Children


“The CIA agent looked more dead than alive. Alex wondered if he had been hit, but there was no sign of any blood. Perhaps he was in shock.”
― Anthony Horowitz, quote from Skeleton Key


“The hardest part for us was watching them harvest our Shamouti oranges.Those were our favourites, thick skinned, seedless and juicy.When the wind was strong, the scent of their blossoms in the spring and their fruit in the summer still reached us.”
― Michelle Cohen Corasanti, quote from The Almond Tree


Interesting books

Wolf Totem
(2.8K)
Wolf Totem
by Jiang Rong
Wait for Me
(16.5K)
Wait for Me
by Elisabeth Naughton
The Education of Sebastian
(6.3K)
The Education of Seb...
by Jane Harvey-Berrick
Cross My Heart, Hope to Die
(7.9K)
Cross My Heart, Hope...
by Sara Shepard
Persuader
(51.4K)
Persuader
by Lee Child
Knight's Mistress
(6.7K)
Knight's Mistress
by C.C. Gibbs

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.