Joseph Brodsky Quotes & Sayings

Buenas noches.
Don't mind the roaches. — Joseph Brodsky

The government, the state, they're just objects of jokes rather than serious consideration. I can't possibly take them seriously. — Joseph Brodsky

In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony. — Joseph Brodsky

For in a real tragedy, it is not the hero who perishes; it is the chorus. — Joseph Brodsky

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair. — Joseph Brodsky

In the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft. — Joseph Brodsky

In Russia, the moment a person opens his mouth you know where he's from. There's the uniformity of experience of an individual in Russia. When you're about 7 years old you get into school and you get put in this factory or this bureaucracy or whatever. The options are computable. Here it's tremendously diverse. — Joseph Brodsky

In general, in America, every discourse in literature in 15 minutes degenerates into a conversation about ethics, morality and this and that. The Holocaust and the consequences of it. Well, I find it terribly boring, predictable and unimportant, because what matters about literature is esthetic achievement. — Joseph Brodsky

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

Out of Dostoevsky: Kafka. Out of Tolstoy: Margaret Mitchell.
(in conversation, explaining his dislike for Tolstoy) — Joseph Brodsky

Poetry must be available to the public in far greater volume than it is. It should be as ubiquitous as the nature that surrounds us, and from which poetry derives many of its similes; or as ubiquitous as gas stations, if not as cars themselves. Bookstores should be located not only on campuses or main drags but at the assembly plant's gates also. Paperbacks of those we deem classics should be cheap and sold at supermarkets. This is, after all, a country of mass production, and I don't see why what's done for cars can't be done for books of poetry, which take you quite a bit further. Because you don't want to go a bit further? Perhaps; but if this is so, it's because you are deprived of the means of transportation, not because the distances and the destinations that I have in mind don't exist. — Joseph Brodsky

When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface. The idea here is to exact a full look at the worst. The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor.
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

On the whole, love comes with the speed of light; separation, with that of sound. — Joseph Brodsky

Mandelstam was, one is tempted to say, a modern Orpheus: sent to hell, he never returned, while his widow dodged across one-sixth of the earth's surface, clutching the saucepan with his songs rolled up inside, memorizing them by night in the event they were found by Furies with a search warrant. These are our metamorphoses, our myths. — Joseph Brodsky

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. — Joseph Brodsky

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

The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie. — Joseph Brodsky

After having exhausted all the arguments on behalf of evil, one utters the creed's dictums with nostalgia rather than with fervor. — Joseph Brodsky

In America, a metrical poem is likely to conjure up the idea of the sort of poet who wears ties and lunches at the faculty club. In Russia it suggests the moral force of an art practiced against the greatest personal odds, as a discipline, solitary and intense. — Joseph Brodsky

Of all the parts of your body, be most vigilant over your index finger, for it is blame-thirsty. A pointed finger is a victim's logo. — Joseph Brodsky

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

The fact that the world today is what it is suggests, to say the least, that this concept is far from being cherished universally. The reasons for its unpopularity are twofold. First, what is required for this concept to be put into effect is a margin of democracy. This is precisely what 86 percent of the globe lacks. Second, the common sense that tells a victim that his only gain in turning the other cheek and not responding in kind yields, at best, a moral victory, i.e., quite immaterial. The natural reluctance to expose yet another part of your body to a blow is justified by a suspicion that this sort of conduct only agitates and enhances Evil; that moral victory can be mistaken by the adversary for his impunity. — Joseph Brodsky

There are far more a worst crimes than burning books ... Not reading them. — Joseph Brodsky

The moral victory itself may not be so moral after all, not only because suffering often has a narcissistic aspect to it, but also because it renders the victim superior, that is, better than his enemy. Yet no matter how evil your enemy is, the crucial thing is that he is human; and although incapable of loving another like ourselves, we nonetheless know that evil takes root when one man starts to think that he is better than another. — Joseph Brodsky

In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface. — Joseph Brodsky

Every life has a file, if you will. — Joseph Brodsky

No matter how daring or cautious you may choose to be, in the course of your life you are bound to come into direct physical contact with what's known as Evil. I mean here not a property of the gothic novel but, to say the least, a palpable social reality that you in no way can control. No amount of good nature or cunning calculations will prevent this encounter. In fact, the more calculating, the more cautious you are, the greater is the likelihood of this rendezvous, the harder its impact. Such is the structure of life that what we regard as Evil is capable of a fairly ubiquitous presence if only because it tends to appear in the guise of good. You never see it crossing your threshold announcing itself: "Hi, I'm Evil!" That, of course, indicates its secondary nature, but the comfort one may derive from this observation gets dulled by its frequency. — Joseph Brodsky

A glance leaves an imprint on anything it's dwelt on. — Joseph Brodsky

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. — Joseph Brodsky

And geography blended
with time equals destiny. — Joseph Brodsky

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. — Joseph Brodsky

In the end, like the Almighty Himself, we make everything in our image, for want of a more reliable model; our artifacts tell more about ourselves than our confessions. — Joseph Brodsky

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. — Joseph Brodsky

It's enough, therefore, to glance in the dictionary and find that katorga (forced labor) is a Turkish word, too. And it's enough to discover on a Turkish map, somewhere in Anatolia, or Ionia, a town called Nigde (russian for nowhere). — Joseph Brodsky

Who included me among the ranks of the human race? — Joseph Brodsky

Poetry is what is gained in translation. — Joseph Brodsky

The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything. — Joseph Brodsky

Throughout one's life, time addresses man in a variety of languages: in those of innocence, love, faith, experience, history, fatigue, cynicism, guilt, decay, etc. Of those, the language of love is clearly the lingua franca. Its vocabulary absorbs all the other tongues, and its utterance gratifies a subject, however inanimate it may be. Also, by being thus uttered, a subject acquires an ecclesiastical, almost sacred denomination, echoing both the way we perceive the objects of our passions and the Good Book's suggestion as to what God is. Love is essentially an attitude maintained by the infinite toward the finite. The reversal constitutes either faith or poetry. Akhmatova's — Joseph Brodsky

In the morning this light breasts your windowpane and, having pried your eye open like a shell, runs ahead of you, strumming its lengthy rays - like a hot-footed schoolboy running his stick along the iron grate of the park or garden - along arcades, colonnades, red-brick chimneys, saints and lions. "Depict! Depict!" it cries to you, either mistaking you for some Canaletto or Carpaccio or Guardi, or because it doesn't trust your retina's ability to retain what it makes available, not to mention your brain's capacity to absorb it. Perhaps art is simply an organism's reaction against its retentive limitations. At any rate, you obey the command and grab your camera, supplementing both your brain cells and your pupil. Should this city ever be short of cash, it can go straight to Kodak for assistance - or else tax its products savagely. By the same token, as long as this place exists, as long as winter light shines upon it, Kodak shares are the best investment. — Joseph Brodsky

Opera and church recitals are options, of course, but they require some initiative and arrangement: tickets and schedules and so forth. I am not good at that; it's rather like fixing a three-course meal for yourself - perhaps even lonelier. — Joseph Brodsky

Man is what he reads. — Joseph Brodsky

All the literati keep at least one imaginary friend. — Joseph Brodsky

The poetic notion of infinity is far greater than that which is sponsored by any creed. — Joseph Brodsky

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. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion. — Joseph Brodsky

A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state. — Joseph Brodsky

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

It's partly the fault of the institutions of education. But it's partly the decision to be relieved of responsibility. Literature is simply the most focused form of the demands on the evolution of the species. It imposes a certain responsibility, moral, ethical and esthetic responsibility, and the species simply doesn't want to oblige. — Joseph Brodsky

Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production. — Joseph Brodsky

What we regard as Evil is capable of a fairly ubiquitous presence if only because it tends to appear in the guise of good. — Joseph Brodsky

It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything. — Joseph Brodsky

It is a virtue, I came to believe long ago, not to make a meal out of one's emotional life. There's always enough work to do, not to mention that there's world enough outside. — Joseph Brodsky

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

A man should know about himself two or three things: whether he is a coward; whether he is an honest man or given to lies; whether he is an ambitious man. One should define oneself first of all in those terms, and only then in terms of culture, race, creed. — Joseph Brodsky

Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain ourselves too hard trying to distinguish between the author's persona and the poem's lyrical hero. As a rule, such distinctions are quite meaningless, if only because a lyrical hero is invariably an author's self-projection. — Joseph Brodsky

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

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. — Joseph Brodsky

For darkness restores what light cannot repair. — Joseph Brodsky

The Last Judgement is the Last Judgement, but a human being who spent his life in Russia, has to be, without any hesitation, placed into Paradise. — Joseph Brodsky

Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy? — Joseph Brodsky

What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness. — Joseph Brodsky

By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman, or the charlatan. In other words, it forfeits its own evolutionary potential. For what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is precisely the gift of speech. Poetry is not a form of entertainment and in a certain sense not even a form of art, but it is our anthropological, genetic goal. Our evolutionary, linguistic beacon. — Joseph Brodsky

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

The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick. — Joseph Brodsky

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. — Joseph Brodsky

No matter under what circumstances you leave it, home does not cease to be home. No matter how you lived there - well or poorly. — Joseph Brodsky

In general, dividing literature into prose and poetry began with the appearance of prose, for only in prose could such a division be expressed. By its nature, by its essence, art is hierarchical, automatically, and in this hierarchy, poetry stands above prose. If only because poetry is older. Poetry really is a very strange thing, because it belongs to a troglodyte as well as to a snob. It can be produced in the Stone Age and in the most modern salon, whereas prose requires a developed society, a developed structure, certain established classes, if you like. Here you could start reasoning like a Marxist without even being wrong. The poet works from the voice, from the sound. For him, content is not as important as is ordinarily believed. For a poet, there is almost no difference between phonetics and semantics. Therefore, only very rarely does the poet give any thought to who in fact comprises his audience. That is, he does so much more rarely than the prose writer. — Joseph Brodsky

If there is any substitute for love, it is memory. — Joseph Brodsky

I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is ... In any case, I always thought that if the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water, the water was bound to reflect it. Hence my sentiment for water, for its folds, wrinkles. and ripples, and - as I am a Northerner - for its grayness. I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year's Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it. — Joseph Brodsky

When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both. — Joseph Brodsky

I'm not trying to be ridiculous or funny, but it was rather pleasant to find yourself in isolation, in solitary. — Joseph Brodsky

As long as the state permits itself to interfere in the affairs of literature, literature has the right to interfere with the affairs of state. — Joseph Brodsky

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

What paradise and vacation have in common is that you have to pay for both, and the coin is your previous life. — Joseph Brodsky

Bad literature is a form of treason. — Joseph Brodsky

Life - the way it really is - is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse — Joseph Brodsky

The instinctive preference was to read rather than to act. No wonder our actual lives were more or less a shambles — Joseph Brodsky

Now to die of grief
would mean, I'm afraid, to die
belatedly, while latecomers
are unwelcome, particularly in the future ... — Joseph Brodsky

Perhaps art is simply an organism's reaction against its retentive limitations. — Joseph Brodsky

An object, after all, is what makes infinity private. — Joseph Brodsky

How delightful to find a friend in everyone. — Joseph Brodsky

As a form of moral insurance, at least, literature is much more dependable than a system of beliefs or a philosophical doctrine. Since there are no laws that can protect us from ourselves, no criminal code is capable of preventing a true crime against literature; though we can condemn the material suppression of literature - the persecution of writers, acts of censorship, the burning of books - we are powerless when it comes to its worst violation: that of not reading the books. For that crime, a person pays with his whole life; if the offender is a nation, it pays with its history. — Joseph Brodsky

If one's fated to be born in Caesar's Empire, let him live aloof, provincial, by the seashore ... — Joseph Brodsky

[T]he accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis. — Joseph Brodsky

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

secrecy is a hotbed of vanity — Joseph Brodsky

Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets. — Joseph Brodsky

What's wrong with discourses about the obvious is that they corrupt consciousness with their easiness, with the speed with which they provide one with moral comfort, with the sensation of being right. — Joseph Brodsky

The Constitution doesn't mention rain. — Joseph Brodsky

Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose. — Joseph Brodsky

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

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. — Joseph Brodsky

VIII
O when so much has been and gone
behind you - grief, to say the least
expect no help from anyone.
Board a train, get to the coast.
It's wider and it's deeper. This
superiority's not a thing
of joy especially. Mind you, if
one has to feel as orphans do,
better in places where the view
stirs somehow and cannot sting. — Joseph Brodsky

If they had wanted to punish me, they should have kept me in a communal apartment. Then I would have become a wreck. — Joseph Brodsky

It's an abominable fallacy that suffering makes for greater art. Suffering blinds, deafens, ruins, and often kills. Osip Mandelstam was a great poet before the revolution. So was Anna Akhmatova, so was Marina Tsvetaeva. They would have become what they became even if none of the historical events that befell Russia in this century had taken place: because they were gifted. Basically, talent doesn't need history. — Joseph Brodsky

Ethics based on this faultily quoted verse have changed nothing in post-Gandhi India, save the color of its administration. From a hungry man's point of view, though, it's all the same who makes him hungry. I submit that he may even prefer a white man to be responsible for his sorry state if only because this way social evil may appear to come from elsewhere and may perhaps be less efficient than the suffering at the hand of his own kind. With an alien in charge, there is still room for hope, for fantasy.
Similarly in post-Tolstoy Russia, ethics based on this misquoted verse undermined a great deal of the nation's resolve in confronting the police state. What has followed is known all too well: six decades of turning the other cheek transformed the face of the nation into one big bruise, so that the state today, weary of its violence, simply spits at that face. As well as at the face of the world. — Joseph Brodsky

I don't want to dive into that mud slide, which is what I consider the literary process. — Joseph Brodsky

If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one's drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one's language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go. — Joseph Brodsky

Literature sort of makes your daily operation, your daily conduct, the management of your affairs in the society a bit more complex. And it puts what you do in perspective, and people don't like to see themselves or their activities in perspective. They don't feel quite comfortable with that. Nobody wants to acknowledge the insignificance of his life, and that is very often the net result of reading a poem. — Joseph Brodsky

I'm 100 percent Jewish by blood, but by education I'm nothing. By affiliation I'm nothing. — Joseph Brodsky

I don't have principles. I have nerves. — Joseph Brodsky