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
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… — 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… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture, and the people. — 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
A person sets out to write a poem for a variety of reasons: to win the heart of his beloved; to express… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
One who writes a poem writes it because the language prompts, or simply dictates, the next line. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
It's a maddening thing in itself to look at an old poem of yours. To translate it is even more maddening. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological - indeed,… — 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
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
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
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
After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
American poetry to me is a sort of relentless, nonstop sermon on human autonomy. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
With poets, the choice of words is invariably more telling than the story line; that's why the best of them dread the… — 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
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
