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
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
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
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
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
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
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
If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice.… — 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
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
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
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
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
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
It's partly the fault of the institutions of education. But it's partly the decision to be relieved of responsibility. Literature is simply… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony. — 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
