Yiannis Ritsos Quotes & Sayings

All the words are not enough to get anything said. — Yiannis Ritsos

I know that each one of us travels to love alone,
alone to faith and to death.
I know it. I've tried it. It doesn't help.
Let me come with you. — Yiannis Ritsos

And look, my brother, we learned to talk
very quietly and simply.
We understand each other now - there is no need for anything more.
And I say tomorrow we will become still simpler;
we'll find those words that take on the same weight in all hearts, on all lips so that we can call figs figs, and a trough a trough, so that others will smile and say: 'We're making you a hundred poems an hour'. This is what we want too.
Because we do not sing to separate ourselves from people, my brother,
we sing to bring people together. — Yiannis Ritsos

When there's a moon the shadows in the house grow larger;
invisible hands draw back the curtains,
a pallid finger writes forgotten words on dust
of the piano ... — Yiannis Ritsos

... the fisherman's daughter grinding serenity in her coffee grinder. — Yiannis Ritsos