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
At certain periods of history it is only poetry that is capable of dealing with reality by condensing it into something graspable,… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I simply loved all my life; loved is too strong a word, but I had a tremendous sentiment, partly conditioned, of course,… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are... not that the knowledge is… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Neither as a writer nor, moreover, as a leader of a nation should you use terminology that obscures the reality of human… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
It is almost a rule that the more complex a man is, the simpler his billing. A person with a retrospective ability… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
No matter how daring or cautious you may choose to be, in the course of your life, you are bound to come… — 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
