Paperbacks of those we deem classics should be cheap and sold at supermarkets.
From Joseph Brodsky
A writer is defined by the language in which he writes, and I would stick to that definition.
I am neither an Occidental writer nor a Russian writer. I am an accidental writer.
English is the only interesting thing that's left in my life.
I belong to Russian literature, but I am an American citizen, and I think it's the best possible combination.
What provides you with subject matter is your own language - and that's all.
The blue-collar is not supposed to read Horace, nor the farmer in his overalls Montale or Marvell. Nor, for that matter, is the politician expected to know by heart Gerard Manley Hopkins or Elizabeth Bishop. This is dumb as well as dangerous.
Literature is a far more ancient and viable thing than any social formation or state. And just as the state interferes in literature, literature has the right to interfere in the affairs of state.
Writers seem mesmerized by the state - the temporal entity. The word 'perestroika' is impressed somehow on our minds. But that is not the duty of a writer.
A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only duty.
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