Author Profile
Joseph Brodsky
1940 – 1996 • American • Poet
65
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 65 quotesIt would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.— Joseph Brodsky
Beginning a poem, the poet as a rule doesn't know the way it's going to come out, and at times, he is very surprised by the way it turns out, since often it turns out better than he expected; often his thought carries further than he reckoned.— Joseph Brodsky
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 Brodsky