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Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

Boris Pasternak

I used to be very revolutionary, but now I think that nothing can be gained by brute force. People must be drawn to good by goodness.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Character Force Goodness Myself Revolution Thinking
Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Cold Life Ourselves Secret Stream Suffering Warm
As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Establishment Ignorance Man Myth Power
I have the impression that if he didn’t complicate his life so needlessly, he would die of boredom.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Boredom Complication Death Impression Need
During the last years of Mayakovski’s life, when all poetry had ceased to exist . . . literature had stopped.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Existence Life Literature Poetry Stop
Even so, one step from my grave, I believe that cruelty, spite, The powers of darkness will in time Be crushed by the spirit of light.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Believe Cruelty Grave Light Spirit Time
Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Beautiful Existence Joy Key Organic Serve
In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Fools Generation Himself Talk Truth
They don’t ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Hate Love Yourself
In this era of world wars, in this atomic age, values have changed. We have learned that we are guests of existence, travelers between two stations. We must discover security within ourselves.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Age Change Discover Existence Guest Ourselves Science Security Travel War World
If it’s so painful to love and absorb electricity, how much more painful it is to be a woman, to be the electricity, to inspire love.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Deep Electricity Love Pain Woman
To be a woman is a great adventure; To drive men mad is a heroic thing.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Adventure Greatness Hero Madness Woman
Oh, what a love it was, utterly free, unique, like nothing else on earth! Their thoughts were like other people’s songs.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Earth Freedom Love People Thinking Unique
He comes as a guest to the feast of existence, and knows that what matters is not how much he inherits but how he behaves at the feast, and what people remember and love him for.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Existence Himself Inheritance Love People Remember
Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Blade Creation Poetry Rich Tears
And remember: you must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Act Circumstance Hope Misfortune Remember

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

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Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

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