George Burns
American comedian, actor, writer and singer (1896-1996)
Boris Pasternak was a renowned Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. He wrote the famous novel Doctor Zhivago, which was rejected for publication in the USSR but later became a crucial part of the Russian school curriculum. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but was forced to decline it by the Communist Party.
Table of Contents
Family Info
Siblings
Alexander Pasternak
Josephine Pasternak
Lydia Pasternak Slater
Spouses
Zinaida Nikolajevna Pasternak
Evgenia Lurie
Children
Yevgeny Pasternak
About the Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternakwas a Russian poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator.
Composed in 1917, Pasternak’s first book of poems, My Sister, Life, was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an important collection in the Russian language. Pasternak’s translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderon de la Barca and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences.
Pasternak was the author of Doctor Zhivago (1957), a novel that takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the First World War. Doctor Zhivago was rejected for publication in the USSR, but the manuscript was smuggled to Italy and was first published there in 1957.
Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize. In 1989, Pasternak’s son Yevgeny finally accepted the award on his father’s behalf. Doctor Zhivago has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003.
Frequently Asked Questions
Boris Pasternak was a Russian poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator. He is best known for writing the novel Doctor Zhivago.
Pasternak’s first book of poems, titled My Sister, Life, was composed in 1917 and published in Berlin in 1922.
Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago, set between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the First World War, was initially rejected for publication in the USSR but later became a crucial part of the Russian school curriculum.
Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, but the Communist Party of the Soviet Union forced him to decline the prize.
Pasternak’s translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderón de la Barca, and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences.
22 Quotes by Boris Pasternak
- 1.
Man is born to live and not to prepare to live.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 2.
As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 3.
What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 4.
No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 5.
Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 6.
They don’t ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 7.
What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 8.
Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 9.
Even so, one step from my grave, I believe that cruelty, spite, The powers of darkness will in time, Be crushed by the spirit of light.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 10.
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 PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 11.
That’s metaphysics, my dear fellow. It’s forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won’t take it.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 12.
Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 13.
At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 14.
No bad man can be a good poet.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 15.
Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 16.
In view of the meaning given to this honor in the community to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize that has been awarded to me. Do not meet my voluntary refusal with ill will.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 17.
You fall into my arms. You are the good gift of destruction’s path, When life sickens more than disease. And boldness is the root of beauty. Which draws us together.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 18.
As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 19.
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 PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 20.
As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 21.
Work is the order of the day, just as it was at one time, with our first starts and our best efforts. Do you remember? Therein lies its delight. It brings back the forgotten; one’s stores of energy, seemingly exhausted, come back to life.
Boris PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)
- 22.
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 PasternakRussian writer (1890-1960)