Anna Akhmatova on Political and Psychological Repression

“In the fearful years of the Yezhov terror, I spend seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad. One day somebody ‘identified’ me…and whispered in my ear…’Can you describe this?’ And I said: ‘Yes, I can.’”

Requiem Preface (written 1957)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.