All The Literati Keep At Least One

I Don't Believe In That Country Any Longer. I'm Not Interested. I'm Writing In The Language, And I Like The Language.

For A Writer Only One Form Of Patriotism Exists: His Attitude Toward Language.

In Poetic Thought, The Role Of The Subconscious Is Played By Euphony.

In Russia, The Moment A Person Opens His Mouth You Know Where He's From. There's The Uniformity Of Experience Of An Individual In Russia. When You're About 7 Years Old You Get Into School And You Get Put In This Factory Or This Bureaucracy Or Whatever. The Options Are Computable. Here It's Tremendously Diverse.

Because Every Book Of Art, Be It A Poem Or A Cupola, Is Understandably A Self-portrait Of Its Author, We Won't Strain Ourselves Too Hard Trying To Distinguish Between The Author's Persona And The Poem's Lyrical Hero. As A Rule, Such Distinctions Are Quite Meaningless, If Only Because A Lyrical Hero Is Invariably An Author's Self-projection.