Quote

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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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
Except
Mustache
Grows
Banner
Nothing
Catastrophe
Asia
Prophet
East
Mustaches
Horror
Dusty
Green
Delirium

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An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.
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A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre the realization of it, for destiny.
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I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.
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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.
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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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I don't have principles. I have nerves.
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For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
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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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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.
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Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse
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On the whole, love comes with the speed of light separation, with that of sound.
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A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.
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If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.
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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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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.
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What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.
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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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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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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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The government, the state, they're just objects of jokes rather than serious consideration. I can't possibly take them seriously.
Joseph Brodsky