Prison is essentially a shortage of space made up for by a surplus of time; to an inmate, both are palpable. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I had been imprisoned three times and had twice been incarcerated in a madhouse. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“... Now to die of grief would mean, I'm afraid, to die belatedly, while latecomers are unwelcome, particularly in the future. ...” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year's Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
The formula for prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time. This is what really bothers you, that… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Because civilizations are finite, in the life of each of them there comes a moment when the center ceases to hold. What… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
The unbearableness of the future is easier to face than that of the present if only because human foresight is much more… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Whether by theft or by artistry or by conquest, when it comes to time, Venetians are the world's greatest experts. They bested… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Time is water, and the Venetians conquered both by building a city on water, and framed time with their canals. Or tamed… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Beginning a poem, the poet as a rule doesn't know the way it's going to come out, and at times, he is… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
In Russia, the moment a person opens his mouth you know where he's from. There's the uniformity of experience of an individual… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
...boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life--...the lesson of your… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“Nobody knew literature and history better than these people, nobody could write better Russian than they, nobody despised our times more profoundly.… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like claiming to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium.… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life - the… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
To put it mildly, nothing can be turned and worn inside out with greater ease than one's notion of social justice, public… — 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
