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.
Joseph BrodskyPerhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.
Joseph BrodskyBecause 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 BrodskyIn 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