Boris Pasternak Quotes
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And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness.
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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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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.
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Work is the order of the day, just as it was at one time, with our first starts and our best efforts. Do you remember? Therein lies its delight. It brings back the forgotten; one's stores of energy, seemingly exhausted, come back to life.
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Art 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.
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They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.
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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.
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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.
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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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Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.
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Ch. 1, part 5
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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.
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Snow, snow over the whole land across all boundaries. The candle burned on the table, the candle burned.
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Am I a gangster or a murderer? Of what crime do I stand Condemned? I made the whole world weep At the beauty of my land.