Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 May 1940
CountryUnited States of America
political lows conversation
I grew up in the sort of cultural milieu that always regarded conversations about the political discourse as tremendously low-brow.
principles nerves
I don't have principles. I have nerves.
opportunity civilization west
In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.
miserable i-can ifs
If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.
jew
I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.
should-have wrecks apartment
If they had wanted to punish me, they should have kept me in a communal apartment. Then I would have become a wreck.
imaginary-friend imaginary
All the literati keep at least one imaginary friend.
sight ruins dear
There's nothing as dear as the sight of ruins.
boredom trying infinity
Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.
explaining conversation dislike
Out of Dostoevsky: Kafka. Out of Tolstoy: Margaret Mitchell. (in conversation, explaining his dislike for Tolstoy)
grateful thinking people
Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture and the people. They've been stolen from the people and now the stolen things are being returned to their owners, but I don't think their owners should be grateful to receive them.
mustache east green
The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches.
poetry roles literature
In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony.
american-poet
It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.