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I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.

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
Proletariat
Describes
Marx
Caught
Way

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The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.
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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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Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.
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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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The government, the state, they're just objects of jokes rather than serious consideration. I can't possibly take them seriously.
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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.
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Poetry is what is gained in translation.
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What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.
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I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.
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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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The Constitution doesn't mention rain.
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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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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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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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The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
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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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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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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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How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
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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.
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