Quotes from Joseph Brodsky

By and large, prisons are survivable, though hope is indeed what you need least upon entering here; a lump of sugar would be more useful.

I wrote poems. That is my work. I am convinced... I believe that what I wrote will be useful to people not only now but in future generations.

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

Poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any linguistic operation.

To translate poetry, one has to possess some art, at the very least the art of stylistic re-embodiment.

Poetry is not an art or a branch of art: it's something more.

Venice is eternity itself.

It is not just shameful for a contemporary American poet to use rhymes, it is unthinkable. It seems banal to him; he fears banality worse than anything, and therefore, he uses free verse - though free verse is no guarantee against banality.

What provides you with subject matter is your own language - and that's all.

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.

Literature is a far more ancient and viable thing than any social formation or state. And just as the state interferes in literature, literature has the right to interfere in the affairs of state.

Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.

Time can be an enemy or a friend.

Unlike life, a work of art never gets taken for granted: it is always viewed against its precursors and predecessors.

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

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. Even your super weirdo creep cousin.

Life, the way it really is, is a battle not between Bad and Good but between Bad and Worse.

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

If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological - indeed, genetic - goal.