It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

I would like to be the chronicler of something that I think is going down the drain very swiftly, and that is small-town, middle-class southern life.

We were taught fortitude by our parents, who had gone through the war. Being a child then was fun. We could go out and play in the street - there were few cars - and we felt very safe.

When I was growing up, I only saw really brown people on 'The Cosby Show,' and they were rich, and their parents were doctors. It wasn't like my home.

The only really expensive thing in our family budget, frankly, is private air travel.

Brodsky was born in May, 1940, a year before the German invasion. His mother worked as an accountant; his father was a photographer and worked for the Navy Museum in Leningrad when Brodsky was young. They were doting parents and much beloved by Iosif Brodsky, who was their only child.