I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language.

Robert Frost's triumph was not being at John Kennedy's inauguration ceremony, but the day when he put the last period on "West-Running Brook.

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

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

What's happening in Russia is devoid of autobiographical interest for me. Maybe it's egocentric. Whatever it is, feel free to use it.

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.

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