Osip Mandelstam Quotes (6 Quotes)

Now I'm dead in the grave with my lips moving; And every schoolboy repeating my words by heart.

Perhaps my whisper was already born before my lips.

I drink the turbid air like a dark water.

When my string's tuned tight as Igor's Song, when I get my breath back, you can hear in my voice the earth.

No, I am no one's contemporary - ever. That would have been above my station . . . How I loathe that other with my name. He certainly never was me.

To deliver life out of captivity, The gnarled knees of the days Must be bound to a flute.