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… — 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
Although I am losing my Soviet citizenship, I do not cease to be a Russian poet. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman,… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Prose is admittedly an art rooted in social intercourse, and a fiction writer is faster to find a common denominator with his… — 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
Judge: And what is your occupation in general? Brodsky: Poet, poet-translator. Judge: And who recognized you to be a poet? Who put… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
The real biographies of poets are like those of birds, almost identical - their data are in the way they sound. A… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I am losing my Soviet citizenship, I do not cease to be a Russian poet. I believe that I will return. Poets… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
In America, a metrical poem is likely to conjure up the idea of the sort of poet who wears ties and lunches… — 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
I'm no parasite. I'm a poet who will bring honor and glory to his country. — 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
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
It is not just shameful for a contemporary American poet to use rhymes, it is unthinkable. It seems banal to him; he… — 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 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
