Joseph Brodsky

“Who included me among the ranks of the human race?”

“In terms of freedom, America doesn't invite any comparison to Russia. It would be silly to make one. Every line that I care to write, I can have printed. There is no point to even talk about degrees.”

“It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.”

“How delightful to find a friend in everyone.”

“What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.”

“Man is what he reads.”

“A person sets out to write a poem for a variety of reasons: to win the heart of his beloved; to express his attitude toward the reality surrounding him, be it a landscape or a state; to capture his state of mind at a given instant; to leave - as he thinks at that moment - a trace on the earth.”

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

“Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.”