After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.
Category Archive: Joseph Brodsky
Snobbery? But it’s only a form of despair.
For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.
The real history of consciousness starts with one’s first lie.
It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.
How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
Who included me among the ranks of the human race?
The poetic notion of infinity is far greater than that which is sponsored by any creed.
A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.
For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.