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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

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
It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Burn Candle Deep Snow World
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
To be a woman is a great adventure; To drive men mad is a heroic thing.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Adventure Greatness Hero Madness Woman
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
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
Only the solitary seek the truth, and they break with all those who don’t love it sufficiently.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Break Enough Seek Solitary Truth
It is not the object described that matters, but the light that falls on it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Description Fall Light Object
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Born Life Live Man Preparation
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
The whole wide world is a cathedral; I stand inside, the air is calm, And from afar at times there reaches My ear the echo of a psalm.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Calm Myself Reach Religious Stand World
Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Astonish Gratitude Proud Touch
As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Erupt Explosion Myself Understand Wonderful World
What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Enough Life Order Truth
He realised, more vividly than ever before, that art had two constant, two unending preoccupations: it is always meditating upon death and it is always thereby creating life.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Death Life Meditation Occupation Realization
But the division in him was a sorrow and a torment, and he became accustomed to it only as one gets used to an unhealed and frequently reopened wound.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Accustom Division Healing Sorrow Torture Wound

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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