She was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantments.
BORIS PASTERNAKShe was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantments.
BORIS PASTERNAKArt has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John.
BORIS PASTERNAKNo single man makes history. History cannot be seen just as one cannot see grass growing.
BORIS PASTERNAKArt is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.
BORIS PASTERNAKAs 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 PASTERNAKYet the order of the acts is planned And the end of the way inescapable. I am alone; all drowns in the Pharisees’ hypocrisy.
BORIS PASTERNAKArt 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 PASTERNAKI 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 PASTERNAKA corner draft fluttered the flame And the white fever of temptation Upswept its angel wings that cast A cruciform shadow.
BORIS PASTERNAKDuring the last years of Mayakovski’s life, when all poetry had ceased to exist . . . literature had stopped.
BORIS PASTERNAKYou and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.
BORIS PASTERNAKBut 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 PASTERNAKHow wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?
BORIS PASTERNAKAnd why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?
BORIS PASTERNAKThe most extraordinary discoveries are made when the artist is overwhelmed by what he has to say.
BORIS PASTERNAKNo 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