A writer is a tool of the language rather than the other way around. — 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
My intention is to write poems. That's what I've been doing most of my life. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Good style in prose is always hostage to the precision, speed, and laconic intensity of poetic diction. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Poetry isn't just different from prose, it's more important for the human species. — 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Regardless of whether one is a writer or a reader, one's task consists first of all in mastering a life that is… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
As a form of moral insurance, at least, literature is much more dependable than a system of beliefs or a philosophical doctrine.… — 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
One who writes a poem writes it because the language prompts, or simply dictates, the next line. — 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
In the 20th century, imprisonment of writers practically comes with the territory. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“In the business of writing, what one accumulates is not experience but uncertainties.” — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
I didn't want to be either the cre'me de la cre'me or a martyr. I'd rather be a novelty, especially in a… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
Whoever it was who said that to philosophize is an exercise in dying was right in more ways than one, for by… — 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
Persecution mania is still around. In your writing, in your exchanges with people, meeting people who are in Russian affairs, Russian literature,… — 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
The one who writes a poem writes it above all because verse writing is an extraordinary accelerator of conscience, of thinking, of… — 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
I am neither an Occidental writer nor a Russian writer. I am an accidental writer. — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of… — 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
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
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
