323 Quotes by Joseph Brodsky

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

There are places in whichthings don't change. These are a substitutefor one's memory.

[Suicide] is the essence of self-portraiture.

An eyelid is twitching. From the open mouthgushes silence. The cities of Europe mounteach other at railroad stations. A pleasant odorof soap tells the jungle dweller of the approaching foe.Wherever you set your sole or toe,the world map develops blank spots, grows balder.

...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.

Aesthetic sense is the twin of one's instinct for self-preservation and is more reliable than ethics.

Love as content is in the habit of limiting formal patterns. The same goes for faith. After all, there are only so many adequate manifestations for truly strong sentiments; which, in the end, is what explains rituals.