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

“one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.” The president smiled. “Well, they’ve had enough time to play this game. I hope my belated reaction will not disappoint them.” “No, sir. Alex must have half expected you to kick him out the door.” “The thought’s occurred to me more than once. His diplomatic charm has always been lost on me. That’s the one thing about the Russians—they remind me so much of the mafia chieftains I used to prosecute. The same smattering of culture and good manners, and the same absence of morality.” The president shook his head. He was talking like a hawk again. “Stay close, Jeff. I have George Farmer coming in here in a few minutes, but I want you around when our friend comes back.” Pelt walked back to his office pondering the president’s remark. It was, he admitted to himself, crudely accurate. The most wounding insult to an educated Russian was to be”
― Tom Clancy, quote from The Hunt for Red October


“Motherf**ker. Bastard ass motherf**ker. C**ks**king rat-bitch bastard motherf**ker!” – Blay”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Mine


“Magic never dies. It merely fades away.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from The Color of Magic


“Renton looks at her and sees her pain and anger. It cuts him
up. It confuses him. Kelly has a great sense of humour. What's wrong with her? The knee–jerk
thought: Wrong time of the' month is forming in his head when he looks about and picks up the
intonations of the laughter around the bar. It's not funny laughter.
This is lynch mob laughter.
How was ah tae know, he thinks. How the fuck was ah tae know?”
― Irvine Welsh, quote from Trainspotting


“Tell me the news, again, whatever it is... sorrow and I are hardly strangers. I can bear the worst.”
― Sophocles, quote from Antigone


Interesting books

Death: A Life
(2.4K)
Magic Lost, Trouble Found
(6.5K)
Magic Lost, Trouble...
by Lisa Shearin
Peter Camenzind
(4.6K)
Peter Camenzind
by Hermann Hesse
Deep Water
(1.9K)
Deep Water
by Patricia Highsmith
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
(6.4K)
The Rational Optimis...
by Matt Ridley
The Source Field Investigations: The Hidden Science and Lost Civilizations Behind the 2012 Prophecies
(1.1K)
The Source Field Inv...
by David Wilcock

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.