Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (/ˈbrɒdski/; Russian: Ио́сиф Алекса́ндрович Бро́дский [ɪˈosʲɪf ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈbrotskʲɪj] ( listen); 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist.
An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.
Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets.
When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both.
Poetry is what is gained in translation.
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.
Love itself is the most elitist of passions. It acquires its stereoscopic substance and perspective only in the context of culture, for it takes up more place in the mind than it does in bed. Outside of that setting it falls flat into one-dimensional fiction.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The poetic notion of infinity is far greater than that which is sponsored by any creed.
The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.
Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those-in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can't escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible. Above all, try to avoid telling stories about the unjust treatment you received at their hands; avoid it no matter how receptive your audience may be. Tales of this sort extend the existence of your antagonists.
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 language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.
In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony.
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.
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.