A Quote by Joseph Brodsky

You cannot cover a ruin with a page of 'Pravda.' — © Joseph Brodsky
You cannot cover a ruin with a page of 'Pravda.'
That Solidarity was a religious movement no one, least of all the Soviets, can deny. In November 1981, Pravda denounced 'religious fanaticism' as a grave challenge to socialism; failure to contain it, Pravda said, was at the root of the problems in Poland.
Let's take Pravda in the 1980s. I mean you could have read things in Pravda saying that it was a stupid error to invade Afghanistan: "it was a dumb thing to do, we have to get out, it's costing us too much." I mean that U.S. analog of that would be "extreme liberalism," and it has been pretty well studied.
The US is headed for ruin and revolution. The revolution will almost certainly be put down, violently. But the ruin cannot be stopped.
Imagine a music business where all the music press talked about, all day long, was cover bands of old rock and pop groups. Beatles cover bands, Rolling Stones cover bands, The Who cover bands, Led Zeppelin cover bands. Cover bands, cover bands, everywhere you go.
My job is to cover the hell out of the story, very aggressively. The real place to be courageous if you're a news organization is where you put your people to cover the story. It's making sure that you have people going to Baghdad. It's making sure that you figure out how to cover the war in Afghanistan. While the journalist in me completely stands with them, the editor of the New York Times in me thinks my job is to figure out what the hell happened and cover the hell out of it, and that's more important than some symbolic drawing on the front page.
The art of fiction is one of constant seduction. You must persuade the reader on page 1 to start reading - on page 50, or page 150 and yes, on page 850.
Nature is not a temple, but a ruin. A beautiful ruin, but a ruin all the same.
You are wrong if you think that you can in any way take the vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins.
I have a horror of the blank page. I simply cannot write on a blank page or screen. Because once I do, I start to fix it, and I never get past the first sentence.
The whole problem with news on television comes down to this: all the words uttered in an hour of news coverage could be printed on a page of a newspaper. And the world cannot be understood in one page.
Without a belief in my programme and without an acceptance of my condition, you will ruin me, ruin yourselves and ruin the cause.
All things have their ends and cycles. And when they have reached their highest point, they are in their lowest ruin, for they cannot last for long in such a state. Such is the end for those who cannot moderate their fortune and prosperity with reason and temperance.
I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
When you're editor-in-chief of a big magazine, you cannot be a cover girl for MAC; you cannot be the face of Givenchy - of course you can't; it's doesn't go with the job.
When I was 13, I went on 'Britain's Got Talent.' I auditioned. I sang a cover of a song called 'White Blank Page' by Mumford & Sons.
Yes, the fear of its blankness. At the same time, I kind of loved it. Mallarmé was trying to make the page a blank page. But if you're going to make the page a blank page, it's not just the absence of something, it has to become something else. It has to be material, it has to be this thing. I wanted to turn a page into a thing.
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