A poet’s autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.
Envy is an insult to oneself.
Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.
Everything I do, I do on the principle of Russian borscht. You can throw everything into it beets, carrots, cabbage, onions, everything you want. What’s important is the result, the taste of the borscht.
There is no need to fear the strong. All one needs is to know the method of overcoming them. There is a special jujitsu for every strong man.
All values in this world are more or less questionable, but the most important thing in life is human kindness.
Only when the sense of the pain of others begins does man begin.
Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers.
Time has a way of demonstrating that the most stubborn are the most intelligent.
When there is freedom of speech, I’ve found that the majority of people really have nothing to say.