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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

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If A Poet Has

Joseph Brodsky

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

What I Like About Cities Is That Everything Is King Size, The Beauty And The Ugliness.

Judge: And What Is Your Occupation In General? Brodsky: Poet, Poet-translator. Judge: And Who Recognized You To Be A Poet? Who Put You In The Ranks Of Poet? Brodsky: No One. And Who Put Me In The Ranks Of Humanity? Judge: Did You Study It?...how To Be A Poet? Did You Attempt To Finish An Insitute Of Higher Learning...where They Prepare...teach Brodsky: I Did Not Think That It Is Given To One By Education. Judge: By What Then? Brodsky: I Think That It Is From God.

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.

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.

Tragedy, As You Know, Is Always A Fait Accompli, Whereas Terror Always Has To Do With Anticipation, With Man's Recognition Of Hisown Negative Potential--with His Sense Of What He Is Capable Of.

I Am Losing My Soviet Citizenship, I Do Not Cease To Be A Russian Poet. I Believe That I Will Return. Poets Always Return In Flesh Or On Paper.

If One's Fated To Be Born In Caesar's Empire, Let Him Live Aloof, Provincial, By The Seashore.

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.

How Delightful To Find A Friend In Everyone.

Out Of Dostoevsky: Kafka. Out Of Tolstoy: Margaret Mitchell. (in Conversation, Explaining His Dislike For Tolstoy)

The Moment That You Place Blame Somewhere, You Undermine Your Resolve To Change Anything.

Snobbery? But It's Only A Form Of Despair.

The Eye Identifies Itself Not With The Body It Belongs To But With The Object Of Its Attention.

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.

Poetry Is What Is Gained In Translation.

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The Poetic Notion Of Infinity Is Far Greater Than That Which Is Sponsored By Any Creed.

When I'm Not Writing Or Reading, I'm Thinking About Both.

Poetry Is Not Only The Most Concise Way Of Conveying The Human Experience; It Also Offers The Highest Possible Standards For Any Linguistic Operation.

The Fact That We Are Living Does Not Mean We Are Not Sick.

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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Russian Talk Of Political Evil Is As Natural As Eating.

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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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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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The Government, The State, They're Just Objects Of Jokes Rather Than Serious Consideration. I Can't Possibly Take Them Seriously.

Bad Literature Is A Form Of Treason.

Persecution Mania Is Still Around. In Your Writing, In Your Exchanges With People, Meeting People Who Are In Russian Affairs, Russian Literature, Etcetera.

...in The Business Of Writing What One Accumulates Is Not Expertise But Uncertainties. Which Is But Another Name For Craft.

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

Who Included Me Among The Ranks Of The Human Race?

At Certain Periods Of History It Is Only Poetry That Is Capable Of Dealing With Reality By Condensing It Into Something Graspable, Something That Otherwise Wouldn't Be Retained By The Mind.

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