American poetry is this country's greatest patrimony. It takes a stranger to see some things clearly. This is one of them, and I am that stranger.

— Joseph Brodsky

American poetry to me is a sort of relentless, nonstop sermon on human autonomy.

— Joseph Brodsky

Americans have been tremendously fortunate in poetry, regarding both the quantity and quality of poetry produced. Unfortunately, it remains in schools and universities; it is not widely distributed.

— Joseph Brodsky

Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a 'read,' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself.

— Joseph Brodsky

A person sets out to write a poem for a variety of reasons: to win the heart of his beloved; to express his attitude toward the reality surrounding him, be it a landscape or a state; to capture his state of mind at a given instant; to leave - as he thinks at that moment - a trace on the earth.

— Joseph Brodsky

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

— Joseph Brodsky

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.

— Joseph Brodsky

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

— Joseph Brodsky

How delightful to find a friend in everyone.

— Joseph Brodsky

I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is... In any case, I always thought that if the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water, the water was bound to reflect it. Hence, my sentiment for water, for its folds, wrinkles. And ripples, and - as I am a Northerner - for its grayness. I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year's Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it.

— Joseph Brodsky