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

“That's life out there. See how it's movin? Even the leaves on the trees is movin'. Life don't wait for nobody, and even as special as you are, it ain't gonna wait for you, neither. So it's time to make up your mind that you're gonna join it.”
― Beth Hoffman, quote from Saving CeeCee Honeycutt


“A shadow strolled past the car, indifferent to our curbside melodrama. This was my second time imperiled in a a parked vehicle in the space of three hours. I wondered what goonish spectacles I'd overlooked in my own career as a pavement walker.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Motherless Brooklyn


“It is not an act of bravery to try to save your own village. It is an instinct to protect what you possess. Bravery is when you step in to help when you have nothing to lose.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden


“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi


“Night came and fell hard.
Not like God drawing a blanket over our land
But like someone snuffing a candle.
Sudden and total.
Out—just like that.
Now we are waiting.
Waiting in the dark
To see if someone
Will switch on the light.
We can cower,
We can fear,
We can get lost together or
Get lost alone.
But the truth is:
I am the light. You are the light.
We are lit up together.
We are silhouettes of sunlight
cast against the night.
Shining now, let us
Shining, hold the light,
Shining, so that our families
Can find us.
Shining.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Monument 14


Interesting books

The Girl of Fire and Thorns
(66.1K)
The Girl of Fire and...
by Rae Carson
The Borrowers
(80.1K)
The Borrowers
by Mary Norton
Second Grave on the Left
(38.3K)
Second Grave on the...
by Darynda Jones
Anne's House of Dreams
(68.2K)
Anne's House of Drea...
by L.M. Montgomery
Succubus Revealed
(19.2K)
Succubus Revealed
by Richelle Mead
The Fifth Season
(46.8K)
The Fifth Season
by N.K. Jemisin

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.