Quote

I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out which is worse the dark inside, or the darkness out.

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
Hard
Would
Figure
Worse
Figures
Darkness
Inside
Dark

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

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Robert Frost's triumph was not being at John Kennedy's inauguration ceremony, but the day when he put the last period on West-Running Brook.
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The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
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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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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.
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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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If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet.
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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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After having exhausted all the arguments on behalf of evil, one utters the creed's dictums with nostalgia rather than with fervor.
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Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.
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Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.
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How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
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Who included me among the ranks of the human race?
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An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.
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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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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.
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A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.
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In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.
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If they had wanted to punish me, they should have kept me in a communal apartment. Then I would have become a wreck.
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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.
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If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.
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