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I grew up in the sort of cultural milieu that always regarded conversations about the political discourse as tremendously low-brow.

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
Always
Regarded
Discourse
Cultural
Lows
Milieu
Conversation
Brow
Grew
Tremendously
Sort
Brows
Political
Conversations

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I'm neither Catholic not Protestant. Protestant sounds good but I don't think I am.
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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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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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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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Who included me among the ranks of the human race?
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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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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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Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?
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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 am quite prepared to die here [in NY]. It doesn't matter at all. I don't know better places, or perhaps if I do I am not prepared to make a move.
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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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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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The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.
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Poetry is what is gained in translation.
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I'm not trying to be ridiculous or funny, but it was rather pleasant to find yourself in isolation, in solitary.
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Bad literature is a form of treason.
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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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There's nothing as dear as the sight of ruins.
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Language and, presumably, literature are more ancient and inevitable, more durable than any form of social organization. The revulsion, irony, or indifference often expressed by literature toward the state is essentially the reaction of the permanent-better yet, the infinite-against the temporary, against the finite.
Joseph Brodsky