Velimir Khlebnikov Quotes

#1. A child playing with dolls may shed heartfelt tears when his bundle of rags and scraps becomes deathly ill and dies ... So we may come to an understanding of language as playing with dolls: in language, scraps of sound are used to make dolls and replace all the things in the world.

Velimir Khlebnikov

#2. effect the exchange of labor and services by means of an exchange of heartbeats. estimate every task in terms of heartbeats-the monetary unit of the future, in which all individuals are equally wealthy. take 365 times 317 as the median number of heartbeats in any twenty-four-hour period.

Velimir Khlebnikov

#3. Scrape the surface of language, and you will behold interstellar space and the skin that encloses it.

Velimir Khlebnikov

#4. But every line we write breathes victory and challenge, the bad temper of a conqueror, underground explosions, howls. We are a volcano. We vomit forth black smoke.
The heavens open and out comes an imposing
Pile of garbage; it looks a lot like Leo Tolstoy

Velimir Khlebnikov

#5. You are my song, my dark blue dream
Of doves, of winter's drowsy drone,
And sleighs that slow and golden go
Through gray blue shadows on the snow.

Velimir Khlebnikov