American - Poet | May 24, 1940 - January 28, 1996
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.
Joseph Brodsky
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After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism.
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The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.
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How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
FriendshipFriendFindEveryoneHow
To put it mildly, nothing can be turned and worn inside out with greater ease than one's notion of social justice, public conscience, a better future, etc.
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I'm no parasite. I'm a poet who will bring honor and glory to his country.
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Whether by theft or by artistry or by conquest, when it comes to time, Venetians are the world's greatest experts. They bested time like no one else.
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A person sets out to write a poem for a variety of reasons: to win the heart of his beloved; to express his attitude toward the reality surrounding him, be it a landscape or a state; to capture his state of mind at a given instant; to leave - as he thinks at that moment - a trace on the earth.
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I belong to Russian literature, but I am an American citizen, and I think it's the best possible combination.
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Good style in prose is always hostage to the precision, speed, and laconic intensity of poetic diction.
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It is almost a rule that the more complex a man is, the simpler his billing. A person with a retrospective ability gone rampant often would be called an historian. Similarly, one to whom reality doesn't seem to make sense gets dubbed a philosopher.
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An ethical man doesn't need a consensus of his allies in order to act against something he finds reprehensible.
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