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.

...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.

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.

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.

Language and, presumably, literature are more ancient and inevitable, more durable than any form of social organization. The revulsion, irony, or indifference often expressed by literature toward the state is essentially the reaction of the permanent-better yet, the infinite-against the temporary, against the finite.

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.

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