I haven't shifted language. I'm writing in English because I like it. I'm a sucker for the language, but the good old… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
There is nothing odder than to apply an analytical device to a synthetic phenomenon: for instance, to write in English about a… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I belong to the Russian language. As to the state, from my point of view, the measure of a writer's patriotism is… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I belong to Russian literature, but I am an American citizen, and I think it's the best possible combination. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
When you have those two languages - an analytic one like English and a synthetic, very sensual thing like Russian, you get… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I am neither an Occidental writer nor a Russian writer. I am an accidental writer. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Once I stop being a citizen of the U.S.S.R., I will not stop being a Russian poet. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
As long as the state permits itself to interfere in the affairs of literature, literature has the right to interfere with the affairs of… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
For some odd reason, the expression 'death of a poet' always sounds somewhat more concrete than 'life of a poet.' — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
On the whole, love comes with the speed of light; separation, with that of sound. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
“In the business of writing, what one accumulates is not experience but uncertainties.” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
I haven't shifted language. I'm writing in English because I like it. I'm a sucker for the language, but the good old poems I'm… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
I grew up in the sort of cultural milieu that always regarded conversations about the political discourse as tremendously low-brow. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
“What gets left of a man amounts to a part. To his spoken part. To a part of speech” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
“The instinctive preference was to read rather than to act. No wonder our actual lives were more or less a shambles” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
Americans have been tremendously fortunate in poetry, regarding both the quantity and quality of poetry produced. Unfortunately, it remains in schools and universities; it… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture, and the people. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share
