Quote

It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.

Joseph Brodsky

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Joseph Brodsky
Age: 55 †
Born: 1940
Born: May 24
Died: 1996
Died: January 25
Author
Dramaturge
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
St. Petersburg
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky
Enough
Unions
Jury
Would
Bases
Exile
Judge
Versus
Judging
Twelve
Leave
Soviet
System
Union
Cannot
Prefer
Country
Basis
Preferring

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The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
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I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out which is worse the dark inside, or the darkness out.
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I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language.
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When the eye fails to find beauty-alias solace-it commands the body to create it, or, failing that, adjusts itself to perceive virtue in ugliness.
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I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.
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After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.
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Bad literature is a form of treason.
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I do not believe in political movements. I believe in personal movement, that movement of the soul when a man who looks at himself is so ashamed that he tries to make some sort of change - within himself, not on the outside.
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When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both.
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I don't want to dive into that mud slide, which is what I consider the literary process.
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Tragedy, as you know, is always a fait accompli, whereas terror always has to do with anticipation, with man's recognition of hisown negative potential--with his sense of what he is capable of.
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In general, in America, every discourse in literature in 15 minutes degenerates into a conversation about ethics, morality and this and that. The Holocaust and the consequences of it. Well, I find it terribly boring, predictable and unimportant, because what matters about literature is esthetic achievement.
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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.
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On the whole, love comes with the speed of light separation, with that of sound.
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Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.
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The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.
Joseph Brodsky
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The formula for prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time. This is what really bothers you, that you can't win. Prison is lack of alternatives, and the telescopic predictability of the future is what drives you crazy.
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As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.
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There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
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I don't have principles. I have nerves.
Joseph Brodsky