The Noise of Time Quotes

“From childhood he had been devoted to whatever was useless, metamorphosing the streetcar rattle of life into events of consequence, and when he began to fall in love he tried to tell women about this, but they did not understand him, for which he revenged himself by speaking to them in a wild, bombastic birdy language and exclusively about the loftiest matters.”
― Osip Mandelstam, The Noise of Time: Selected Prose

“Destroy your manuscript, but save whatever you have inscribed in the margin out of boredom, out of helplessness, and, as it were, in a dream. (The Egyptian Stamp)”
― Osip Mandelstam, The Noise of Time: Selected Prose