I am no parasite.

Man is what he reads.

Venice is eternity itself.

Bad politics make for bad morals.

Every life has a file, if you will.

Bad literature is a form of treason.

Life has a great deal up its sleeve.

The Constitution doesn't mention rain.

I don't have principles. I have nerves.

Poetry is what is gained in translation.

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.

One belongs to one's language as a writer.

Geography blended with time equals destiny.

How delightful to find a friend in everyone.

There's nothing as dear as the sight of ruins.

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.

Art is a spirit seeking flesh but finding words.

Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?

You cannot cover a ruin with a page of 'Pravda.'

Creativity is an unending exercise in uncertainty.

Who included me among the ranks of the human race?

All the literati keep at least one imaginary friend.

An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.

The career of an esthete was nothing I ever intended.

Russian talk of political evil is as natural as eating.

When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both.

The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.

If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.

Poetry is not an art or a branch of art: it's something more.

English is the only interesting thing that's left in my life.

I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.

The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.

Tyranny will make an entire population into readers of poetry.

Any dispute in matters of taste usually results in a standoff.

A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.

The imprisoning of a writer is the same as the burning of a book.

In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.

What should I say about life? That it's long and abhors transparence.

In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony.

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

After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism.

I'm no parasite. I'm a poet who will bring honor and glory to his country.

This is the generation whose first cry of life was the Hungarian uprising.

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

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

What provides you with subject matter is your own language - and that's all.

My intention is to write poems. That's what I've been doing most of my life.

Paperbacks of those we deem classics should be cheap and sold at supermarkets.

Unlike a state, a writer cannot plead the historical necessity of his actions.

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