Joseph Brodsky

"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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Source: Joseph Brodsky (2011). “Less Than One: Selected Essays”, p.13, Penguin UK

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Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky

Poet, Essayist

Joseph Brodsky was a Russian-American poet and Nobel laureate, known for his exploration of themes like love, loss, and exile in his works.

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Joseph Brodsky Poet, Essayist

"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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"Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets."

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"A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny."

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