Joseph Brodsky Quotes

There's nothing as dear as the sight of ruins.

At certain periods of history it is only poetry that is capable of dealing with reality by condensing it into something graspable, something that otherwise wouldn't be retained by the mind.

If they had wanted to punish me, they should have kept me in a communal apartment. Then I would have become a wreck.

I grew up in the sort of cultural milieu that always regarded conversations about the political discourse as tremendously low-brow.

The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches.

Out of Dostoevsky: Kafka. Out of Tolstoy: Margaret Mitchell. (in conversation, explaining his dislike for Tolstoy)

I didn't want to be either the cre'me de la cre'me or a martyr. I'd rather be a novelty, especially in a democracy that doesn't understand the language I write in.

Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production.

...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.

Who included me among the ranks of the human race?

I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language.

As to the state, from my point of view, the measure of a writer's patriotism is not oaths from a high platform, but how he writes in the language of the people among whom he lives .

I am quite prepared to die here [in NY]. It doesn't matter at all. I don't know better places, or perhaps if I do I am not prepared to make a move.

In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony.

As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.

I'm neither Catholic not Protestant. Protestant sounds good but I don't think I am.

I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.

My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to be coy, but it doesn't tickle my ego.

All the literati keep at least one imaginary friend.

Robert Frost's triumph was not being at John Kennedy's inauguration ceremony, but the day when he put the last period on "West-Running Brook.

I'm 100 percent Jewish by blood, but by education I'm nothing. By affiliation I'm nothing.

What's happening in Russia is devoid of autobiographical interest for me. Maybe it's egocentric. Whatever it is, feel free to use it.

I don't have principles. I have nerves.

Tragedy, as you know, is always a fait accompli, whereas terror always has to do with anticipation, with man's recognition of hisown negative potential--with his sense of what he is capable of.

Poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any linguistic operation.

I don't want to dive into that mud slide, which is what I consider the literary process.

I'm not trying to be ridiculous or funny, but it was rather pleasant to find yourself in isolation, in solitary.

An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.

The Constitution doesn't mention rain.

Perhaps art is simply an organism's reaction against its retentive limitations.

This assumption that the blue collar crowd is not supposed to read it, or a farmer in his overalls is not to read poetry, seems to be dangerous if not tragic.

I am a patriot, but I must say that English poetry is the richest in the world.

Poetry is not an art or a branch of art: it's something more.

The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse, be that in history, social studies or the art of fiction.

Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a 'read, ' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself.

To translate poetry, one has to possess some art, at the very least the art of stylistic re-embodiment.

Poetry seems to be the only weapon able to beat language, using language's own means.

People who buy 'The National Enquirer' would buy poetry. They should be given a choice. I'm absolutely serious.

American poetry to me is a sort of relentless, nonstop sermon on human autonomy.

Tyranny will make an entire population into readers of poetry.

If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological - indeed, genetic - goal.

American poetry is this country's greatest patrimony. It takes a stranger to see some things clearly. This is one of them, and I am that stranger.

Of all the parts of your body, be most vigilant over your index finger, for it is blame-thirsty. A pointed finger is a victim’s logo.

... Now to die of griefwould mean, I'm afraid, to die belatedly, while latecomersare unwelcome, particularly in the future. ...

[T]he accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis.

[T]he longer you stay skeptical, doubtful, intellectually uncomfortable, the better it is for you.

Poetry isn't just different from prose, it's more important for the human species.