Out of Dostoevsky: Kafka. Out of Tolstoy: Margaret Mitchell. (in conversation, explaining his dislike for Tolstoy) — 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
I started to write when I was eighteen or nineteen. However, until I was about twenty-three, I didn't take it that seriously. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“There are far more a worst crimes than burning books… Not reading them.” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
A writer is seldom satisfied with the condition he finds himself in. We're all given to fretting a lot. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
A writer is a tool of the language rather than the other way around. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture, and the people. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I don't suppose that I know more about life than anyone of my age, but it seems to me that, in the… — 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… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Of course there is no denying the possible pleasure of holing up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; still, we all know… — 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
On the whole, books are indeed less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors - mainly because they… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Paperbacks of those we deem classics should be cheap and sold at supermarkets. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“In the business of writing, what one accumulates is not experience but uncertainties.” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Unlike a state, a writer cannot plead the historical necessity of his actions. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I was fortunate enough to write about things I really love, and love can be very analytic. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
A writer is defined by the language in which he writes, and I would stick to that definition. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I am neither an Occidental writer nor a Russian writer. I am an accidental writer. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Writers seem mesmerized by the state - the temporal entity. The word 'perestroika' is impressed somehow on our minds. But that is… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Bookstores should be located not only on campuses or on main drags, but at the assembly plant's gates, also. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only… — 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
Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a… — 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
