Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those – in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. – Joseph Brodsky
I don’t suppose that I know more about life than anyone of my age, but it seems to me that, in the capacity of an interlocutor, a book is more reliable than a friend or a beloved. – Joseph Brodsky
After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life. – Joseph Brodsky
I remember rather little of my life, and what I do remember is of small consequence. – Joseph Brodsky
Because civilizations are finite, in the life of each of them there comes a moment when the center ceases to hold. What keeps them at such times from disintegration is not legions but language. – Joseph Brodsky
For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life – the lesson of your utter insignificance. – Joseph Brodsky
For some odd reason, the expression ‘death of a poet’ always sounds somewhat more concrete than ‘life of a poet.’ – Joseph Brodsky
What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In everyday life, you can tell the same joke thrice and, thrice getting a laugh, become the life of the party. In art, though, this sort of conduct is called ‘cliche.’ – Joseph Brodsky