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Quote by Olga Livshin

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A Life Replaced: Poems with Translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman

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Olga Livshin

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“Home, like love, hate, war, and peace, is one of those words that is so important that it doesn’t need more than one syllable. Home is part of the fabric of who humans are. Doesn’t matter if you’re a vampire or a wizard or a secretary or a schoolteacher; you have to have a home, even if only in principle—there has to be a zero point from which you can make comparisons to everything else. Home tends to be it.”

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Book:Peace Talks
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“I don't want to work in a kitchen, I want to work in my kitchen. I want chairs that don't match and a porch with a swing. I want mason jars filled with wildflowers in the center of rustic wooden tables. I want flickering candles and a fire in a fireplace. I want mismatched dishes and old-timey silver. I want people to be able to smell what's cooking a mile away so that even though they don't know the address, they'll still find us. I want a honky-tonk band and couples dancing under colorful lanterns. I want a place that feels like home. A place where I belong. I stare at Momma's skillet, on the stovetop waiting for me to fry up those chicken fried steaks. She may not have loved me. She may not have even liked me. But goddamn if that woman didn't teach me how to cook.”

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Book:Nowhere But Home
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“The truth is, I'm not ready to go home... Oh, sure, you'll travel and go abroad again but future trips will not stretch toward infinity like this one, they won't contain so many possibilities. Heading home is the full stop marking the end of adventure; the beginning of a responsible life. And despite twelve months of travelling, I am not ready to be responsible.”

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Book:Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris
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“Everything has been done -- every material thing -- to give this place the aspect of benignity, of friendship, of tolerance and conviviality, but the character of a dwelling, like that of a man, grows slowly. The walls of my house are without memories, or secrets, or laughter. Not enough of life has been breathed into them -- their warmth is artificial; too few hands have turned the window latches, too few feet have trod the thresholds. The boards of the floor, self-conscious as youth or falsely proud as the newly rich, have not yet unlimbered enough to utter a single cordial creak. In time they will, but not for me.”

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Book:West with the Night
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