Boris Pasternak Quotes

It was partly the war, the revolution did the rest. The war was an artificial break in life — as if life could be put off for a time — what nonsense! The revolution broke out willy-nilly like a sigh suppressed too long. Everyone was revived, reborn, changed, transformed. You might say that everyone has been through two revolutions — his own, personal revolution as well as the general one. It seems to me that socialism is the sea, and all these separate streams, these private, individual revolutions, are flowing into it — the sea of life, the sea of spontaneity. I said life, but I mean life as you see it in a great picture, transformed by genius, creatively enriched. Only now people have decided to experience it not in books and pictures, but in themselves, not as an abstraction but in practice.

While the music played a whole eternity went by like life in a novel

Who does more for a nation — the one who makes a fuss about it or the one who, without thinking of it, raises it to universality by the beauty of his actions, and gives it fame and immortality?

The wind swept the snow aside, ever faster and thicker, as if it were trying to catch up with something, and Yurii Andreievich stared ahead of him out of the window, as if he were not looking at the snow but were still reading Tonia’s letter and as if what flickered past him were not small dry snow crystals but the spaces between the small black letters, white, white, endless, endless.

"Dela govore mnogim svojim elementima: temama, situacijama, sižeima, junacima. Ali, više od svega, ona govore umetnošću koja je u njima prisutna. Prisustvo umetnosti na stranicama "Zločina i kazne" mnogo je potresnije od samog Raskoljnikovljevog zločina."

От всичко руско сега най-много обичам руската детска наивност на Пушкин и Чехов, тяхното свенливо чуждеене от такива гръмки неща като крайните цели на човечеството и собственото спасение. И те са наясно по всички подобни въпроси, но къде ти такива нескромности — не е за тях работа и не им приляга! Гогол, Толстой, Достоевски се готвят за смъртта, безпокоят се, дирят смисъла, теглят чертата — а тези докрая се отвличат по текущите частни въпроси на артистичното призвание, покрай тяхното редуване неусетно изживяват живота си пак като лична, никого незасягаща частна работа и сега този частен въпрос се оказва общо дело и подобно на откъсната от дървото зелена ябълка доузрява в приемствеността и се изпълва с все повече сладост и смисъл.

I have always thought that art is not a category, not a realm covering innumerable concepts and derivative phenomena, but that, on the contrary, it is something concentrated, strictly limited. It is a principle that is present in every work of art, a force applied to it and a truth worked out in it. And I have never seen art as form but rather as a hidden, secret part of content…A literary creation can appeal to us in all sorts of ways — by its theme, subject, situations, characters. But above all it appeals to us by the presence in it of art...You can call it an idea, a statement about life, so all-embracing that it can’t be split up into separate words; and if there is so much as a particle of it in any work that includes other things as well, it outweighs all the other ingredients in significance and turns out to be the essence, the heart and soul of the work.

The tsar was pitiable on that gray and warm mountain morning, and it was eerie to think that such timorous reserve and shyness could be the essence of an oppressor, that this weakness could punish and pardon, bind and loose.

Men who are not free always idealize their bondage.

No duermas artista, no duermas, no te entregues al sueño.

"How well she does everything! She reads not as if reading were the highest human activity, but as if it were the simplest possible thing, a thing even animals could do. As if she were carrying water from a well, or peeling potatoes."
These reflections calmed him. A rare peace descended upon his soul. His mind stopped darting from subject to subject. He could not help smiling...

They really thought what other people sing in songs.

Thou hast spread Thy arms to embrace far too many,
Flinging Thy hands out till they reach the ends of the crossbeam.

For as long as he could remember he had never ceased to wonder why, having arms and legs like everyone else, and a language and a way of life common to all, one could be different from the others, liked only by few and, moreover, loved by no one.

But it turns out that those who inspired the revolution aren't at home in anything except change and turmoil, they aren't happy with anything that's on less than a world scale. For them transitional periods, worlds in the making, are an end in themselves. They aren't trained for anything else, they don't know anything except that.