A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only duty.
Interpretation
The essence of a writer's role is to prioritize the language in their work above all else.
In this quote, Joseph Brodsky emphasizes the fundamental responsibility of a writer, which is to focus on the craft of language. By stating that writing well is the writer's only duty, he asserts that the quality and precision of language are paramount to effective communication and artistic expression.
In practice
In a creative writing workshop to inspire aspiring authors.
Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That's what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man.
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.
On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's existence beyond the limits he envisioned, or provides a living author with a future he cannot measure. In other words, this business deals with the future which we all prefer to regard as unending.
The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared manageable. The same goes for the criticism of those doctrines, though as a voice from the past, this criticism proved prophetic.
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those - in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed.
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.
When I lock myself up to write, I cannot allow myself to think about the censor or the reviewer or anyone but my characters and their story!
Since art is a virtue of the intellect, it demands to communicate with the entire universe of the intellect. Hence it is that the normal climate of art is intelligence and knowledge: its normal soil, the civilized heritage of a consistent and integrated system of beliefs and values; its normal horizon , the infinity of human experience enlighted by the passionate insight of anguish or the intellectual virtues of a contemplative mind.
All fiction comes from a little bit of reality, otherwise it would have no relevance. The fun is in innovation, take something real like this fair, and make it something larger than life.
I personally made a decision many years ago that I wanted to crawl into portraiture because it had a lot of latitude.
I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast - talk them or write them down.
You see, dancers are quite mature people because they start performing so early. They become professionals when they start to take everyday classes.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.