The formula for prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time. This is what really bothers you, that you can't win. Prison is lack of alternatives, and the telescopic predictability of the future is what drives you crazy.
Download Image Share on X Share on Facebook

About This Quote

About Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky was a 20th-century Russian poet. Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky, anglicized as Joseph, was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Read more on Wikipedia →

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

“Lifethe way it really isis a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse”
— Joseph Brodsky
cynicism human life philosophy

“For darkness restores what light cannot repair.”
— Joseph Brodsky
poetry

“...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.”
— Joseph Brodsky
writing

“... Now to die of griefwould mean, I'm afraid, to die belatedly, while latecomersare unwelcome, particularly in the future. ...”
— Joseph Brodsky
grief time

“[T]he accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis.”
— Joseph Brodsky
language neurosis speaking speech

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
— Joseph Brodsky
books censorship illiteracy reading
View all quotes by Joseph Brodsky →