No Matter Under What Circumstances You Leave

A Man Should Know About Himself Two Or Three Things: Whether He Is A Coward; Whether He Is An Honest Man Or Given To Lies; Whether He Is An Ambitious Man. One Should Define Oneself First Of All In Those Terms, And Only Then In Terms Of Culture, Race, Creed.

This Is The Generation Whose First Cry Of Life Was The Hungarian Uprising.

When The Eye Fails To Find Beauty-alias Solace-it Commands The Body To Create It, Or, Failing That, Adjusts Itself To Perceive Virtue In Ugliness.

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.

My Poems Getting Published In Russia Doesn't Make Me Feel In Any Fashion, To Tell You The Truth. I'm Not Trying To Be Coy, But It Doesn't Tickle My Ego.