American poetry is this country's greatest patrimony. It takes a stranger to see some things clearly. This is one of them, and… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language. — 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
As to the state, from my point of view, the measure of a writer's patriotism is not oaths from a high platform,… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I'm no parasite. I'm a poet who will bring honor and glory to his country. — 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
