“What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.”

“What gets left of a man amounts to a part. To his spoken part. To a part of speech”

“...boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life--...the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. 'You are finite,' time tells you in a voice of boredom, 'and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile.' As music to your ears, this, of course, may not count; yet the sense of futility, of limited significance even of your best, most ardent actions is better than the illusion of their consequence and the attendant self-satisfaction.”

“...and love, as an act, lacks a verb”

“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.”

“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...teachBrodsky: I did not think that it is given to one by education.Judge: By what then?Brodsky: I think that it is from God.”

“For a writer, only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.”