“There are far more a worst crimes than burning books… Not reading them.” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a 'read,' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture, and the people. — 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
As long as the state permits itself to interfere in the affairs of literature, literature has the right to interfere with the… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
When Thomas Mann arrived in California from Germany, they asked him about German literature. And he said, 'German literature is where I… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
My idea is simply - is very simple - is that the books of poetry should be published in far greater volume… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I don't suppose that I know more about life than anyone of my age, but it seems to me that, in the… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
By writing... in the language of his society, a poet takes a large step toward it. It is society's job to meet… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture and the people. They've been stolen from the people and… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Whoever it was who said that to philosophize is an exercise in dying was right in more ways than one, for by… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Reduced... to a crude formula, the Russian tragedy is precisely the tragedy of a society in which literature turned out to be… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
In general, in America, every discourse in literature in 15 minutes degenerates into a conversation about ethics, morality and this and that.… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Literature sort of makes your daily operation, your daily conduct, the management of your affairs in the society a bit more complex.… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Language and, presumably, literature are more ancient and inevitable, more durable than any form of social organization. The revulsion, irony, or indifference… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
On the whole, books are indeed less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors - mainly because they… — 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
As a form of moral insurance, at least, literature is much more dependable than a system of beliefs or a philosophical doctrine.… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Persecution mania is still around. In your writing, in your exchanges with people, meeting people who are in Russian affairs, Russian literature,… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Regardless of whether one is a writer or a reader, one's task consists first of all in mastering a life that is… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Of course there is no denying the possible pleasure of holing up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; still, we all know… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Weaknesses have a certain function in a poem... some strategy in order to pave the reader's way to the impact of this… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Yevtushenko is a high member of his country's establishment, and he lies terribly about the United States to his Russian readers. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Literature is a far more ancient and viable thing than any social formation or state. And just as the state interferes in… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
In order to live in a different country, you have to love something there. You have to love something there. You have… — 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 Image
For some odd reason, the expression 'death of a poet' always sounds somewhat more concrete than 'life of a poet.' — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
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 Image
On the whole, love comes with the speed of light; separation, with that of sound. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“In the business of writing, what one accumulates is not experience but uncertainties.” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
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 Image
Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
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 Image
“What gets left of a man amounts to a part. To his spoken part. To a part of speech” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
