Joseph Brodsky

Man is what he reads.

— Joseph Brodsky

“It really does look like musical sheets, frayed at the edges, constantly played, coming to you in tidal scores, in bars of…

— Joseph Brodsky

I'm neither Catholic not Protestant. Protestant sounds good but I don't think I am.

— Joseph Brodsky

Every life has a file, if you will.

— Joseph Brodsky

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

Geography blended with time equals destiny.

— Joseph Brodsky

On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's…

— Joseph Brodsky

“A jeśli ktoś cię zapyta "kim jesteś?", to odpowiedz "Ja jestem Nikt" - jak rzekł niegdyś Polifemowi Odys.”

— Joseph Brodsky

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

When Thomas Mann arrived in California from Germany, they asked him about German literature. And he said, 'German literature is where I…

— Joseph Brodsky

The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse,…

— Joseph Brodsky

I began to despise Lenin, even when I was in the first grade, not so much because of his political philosophy or…

— Joseph Brodsky

Writers seem mesmerized by the state - the temporal entity. The word 'perestroika' is impressed somehow on our minds. But that is…

— Joseph Brodsky

What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In…

— Joseph Brodsky

“Liberdade é quando você esquece o nome do tirano.”

— Joseph Brodsky

The Constitution doesn't mention rain.

— Joseph Brodsky

“More than anything, memory resembles a library in alphabetical disorder, and with no collected works by anyone.”

— Joseph Brodsky

“... Now to die of grief would mean, I'm afraid, to die belatedly, while latecomers are unwelcome, particularly in the future. ...”

— Joseph Brodsky

A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only…

— Joseph Brodsky

Poetry seems to be the only weapon able to beat language, using language's own means.

— Joseph Brodsky

Creativity is an unending exercise in uncertainty.

— Joseph Brodsky

...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.

— Joseph Brodsky

Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much…

— Joseph Brodsky

I'm 100 percent Jewish by blood, but by education I'm nothing. By affiliation I'm nothing.

— Joseph Brodsky

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something…

— Joseph Brodsky