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
jew
I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.
fashion russia ego
My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to be coy, but it doesn't tickle my ego.
mud slides want
I don't want to dive into that mud slide, which is what I consider the literary process.
country believe writing
I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language.
finding-yourself trying ridiculous
I'm not trying to be ridiculous or funny, but it was rather pleasant to find yourself in isolation, in solitary.
humility perspective language
If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one’s drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one’s language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.
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.
rain constitution
The Constitution doesn't mention rain.
life long should
What should I say about life? That it's long and abhors transparence.
infinity objects
An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.
explaining conversation dislike
Out of Dostoevsky: Kafka. Out of Tolstoy: Margaret Mitchell. (in conversation, explaining his dislike for Tolstoy)
empires born ifs
If one's fated to be born in Caesar's Empire, let him live aloof, provincial, by the seashore...
race humans human-race
Who included me among the ranks of the human race?
writing democracy want
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 democracy that doesn't understand the language I write in.