I Don't Have Principles. I

Love Itself Is The Most Elitist Of Passions. It Acquires Its Stereoscopic Substance And Perspective Only In The Context Of Culture, For It Takes Up More Place In The Mind Than It Does In Bed. Outside Of That Setting It Falls Flat Into One-dimensional Fiction.

For Darkness Restores What Light Cannot Repair.

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...teach Brodsky: I Did Not Think That It Is Given To One By Education. Judge: By What Then? Brodsky: I Think That It Is From God.

Poetry Is Not Only The Most Concise Way Of Conveying The Human Experience; It Also Offers The Highest Possible Standards For Any Linguistic Operation.

It's Rather An Exhilarating Feeling. It's 6 Or 7 When You Get Up And Go Out Into The Fields Wearing Your Wellingtons Or High Boots. You Know That At This Very Hour Half The Nation Does The Same Thing, Which Gives You, With The Benefit Of Hindsight, A Satisfaction In Doing Those Things, Too, A Knowledge, A Sense Of The Nation. I Was A City Boy Until Then.