Although I am losing my Soviet citizenship, I do not cease to be a Russian poet.
Interpretation
The loss of nationhood does not diminish one's identity or creative essence.
Joseph Brodsky expresses that while he may be losing his Soviet citizenship, his identity as a Russian poet remains intact. This highlights the idea that artistic and personal identity can transcend political and national affiliations, emphasizing the enduring nature of creativity and self-expression despite external changes.
In practice
During a discussion about the impact of political changes on art and creativity.
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.
All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with.
There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.
A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.
Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom,_x000D_ _x000D_ On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;_x000D_ _x000D_ But on thy turf shall roses rear_x000D_ _x000D_ Their leaves, the earliest of the year.
Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music.
The basis for poetry and scientific discovery is the ability to comprehend the unlike in the like and the like in the unlike.
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