I remember myself, age five, sitting on a porch overlooking a very muddy road. The day was rainy. I was wearing rubber boots, yellow - no, not yellow, green - and for all I know, I'm still there.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the persistence of childhood memories and the essence of one's identity tied to them.
In this quote, Joseph Brodsky captures a moment of nostalgia from his childhood, evoking the simplicity and clarity of memories associated with youth. The contrast between the rainy day and the muddy road symbolizes how life can be messy yet beautiful, and the speaker's reflection suggests that these formative moments remain a fundamental part of who we are throughout our lives.
In practice
In a speech about personal identity, this quote can highlight how our past shapes who we are today.
Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That's what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man.
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.
On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's existence beyond the limits he envisioned, or provides a living author with a future he cannot measure. In other words, this business deals with the future which we all prefer to regard as unending.
The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared manageable. The same goes for the criticism of those doctrines, though as a voice from the past, this criticism proved prophetic.
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.
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.
It was Kovacs who said "Mother" then, muffled under latex. It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again.
In history, the moments during which reason and reconciliation prevail are short and fleeting.
In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.
Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
I am busily engaged in the study of the Bible. I believe it is God's word because it finds me where I am.
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