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An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.

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
Objects
Makes
Infinity
Object
Private

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

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On the whole, love comes with the speed of light separation, with that of sound.
Joseph Brodsky
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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.
Joseph Brodsky
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How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
Joseph Brodsky
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I was quite happy in Arkhangelsk.Subsequently, I was sent to a village. I liked it in its own way because it sounded to me very much like the tradition of a hired man in any world-class poem. That's what I was, a hired man. I was working for a collective farm.
Joseph Brodsky
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Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.
Joseph Brodsky
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Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe ... that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens.
Joseph Brodsky
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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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When Thomas Mann arrived in California from Germany, they asked him about German literature. And he said, 'German literature is where I am.' It's really a bit grand, but if a German can afford it, I can afford it.
Joseph Brodsky
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What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.
Joseph Brodsky
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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.
Joseph Brodsky
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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.
Joseph Brodsky
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Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse
Joseph Brodsky
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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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For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
Joseph Brodsky
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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.
Joseph Brodsky