Joseph Brodsky Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

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

  Joseph Brodsky

  Reading, Writing, Thinking

• 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

  Fall, Reading, Writing

  "Less Than One: Selected Essays".

• Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Writing, Men, Self

  Joseph Brodsky (2011). “Less Than One: Selected Essays”, p.158, Penguin UK

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

  Joseph Brodsky

  Writing, Names, Crafts

• 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.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Writing, Hands, Choices

• Persecution mania is still around. In your writing, in your exchanges with people, meeting people who are in Russian affairs, Russian literature, etcetera.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Writing, People, Etcetera

  Joseph Brodsky, Cynthia L. Haven (2002). “Joseph Brodsky: Conversations”, p.80, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• As to the state, from my point of view, the measure of a writer's patriotism is not oaths from a high platform, but how he writes in the language of the people among whom he lives .

  Joseph Brodsky

  Writing, Views, People

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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

  Joseph Brodsky

  Country, Believe, Writing

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• I didn't want to be either the cre`me de la cre`me or a martyr. I'd rather be a novelty, especially in a democracy that doesn't understand the language I write in.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Writing, Democracy, Want

  "Joseph Brodsky's Art of Darkness". www.washingtonpost.com. October 23, 1987.

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin