“The unforeseen is the most beautiful gift life can give us. That is what we must think of multiplying in our domain. That is what should have been talked about in this assembly, and no one has said a word about it ...Art is inconceivable without risk, without inner sacrifice; freedom and boldness of imagination can be won only in the process of work, and it is there the unforeseen I spoke of a moment ago must intervene, and there no directives can help.”
Boris Pasternak“The poet gives his whole life such a voluntarily steep incline that it is impossible for it to exist in the vertical line of biography where we expect to meet it. It is not to be found under his own name and must be sought under those of others, in the biographical columns of his followers. The more self-contained the individuality from which the life derives, the more collective, without any figurative speaking, is its story.”
Boris Pasternak, Safe Conduct: An Autobiography and Other Writings“In a single wave of meaning the triumphant purity of being.”
Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago“But who are we, where do we come fromWhen all those yearsNothing but idle talk is leftAnd we are nowhere in the world?"= MEETING =”
Boris Pasternak, The Poems of Doctor Zhivago“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.”
Boris Pasternak“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.”
Boris Pasternak“Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.”
Boris Pasternak“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.”
Boris Pasternak