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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

At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Alone Isolation Moments Woman
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
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
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
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
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
A corner draft fluttered the flame And the white fever of temptation Upswept its angel wings that cast A cruciform shadow.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Angel Flame Shadow Temptation
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
The last moments slipped by, one by one, irretrievable.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Moments Oneself
How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?
BORIS PASTERNAK

Alive Hurt Thinking
What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Man Power Resist Truth
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
I am caught like a beast at bay. Somewhere are people, freedom, light, But all I hear is the baying of the pack, There is no way out for me.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Freedom Light Myself People
Art is interested in life at the moment when the ray of power is passing through it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Interest Moments Power
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
Salvation lies not in the faithfulness to forms, but in the liberation from them.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Faith Form Liberty Loyalty Lying

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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