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It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose.

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
I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. It will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Discussion Necessary Poetry Simplicity Talk
That’s metaphysics, my dear fellow. It’s forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won’t take it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Funny Myself Science Stomach
She was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantments.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Earth Enchant Herself Magic Wild
Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Risk Sacrifice Spiritual Thinking
As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Modern Paint Rare Translation Writing
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
No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Compassionate Feeling Object Ourselves Strong Victim
The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Himself Modern Society Survival Writing
He was a natural, and in the Russian way, tragically above these banalities.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Himself Natural Tragedy
How many things in the world deserve our loyalty? Very few indeed. I think one should be loyal to immortality, which is another word for life, a stronger word for it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Deserve Immortal Life Loyalty Strong World
No single man makes history. History cannot be seen just as one cannot see grass growing.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Growth History Man Sight
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
I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Beautiful Fall Myself People Reveal Value Virtue
How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?
BORIS PASTERNAK

Alive Hurt Thinking
When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Easy Great Heart Knock Life Missing Moments Yourself

It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose.

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It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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