- Though Vladimir had chosen the Russian language for writing his poetry, the state of contemporary Russian poetry was a little lacking.
- He experimented in different poetic meters and forms and settles in by writing elegies with emotions of loss and anguish.
- As a beginner, Vladimir takes forever to write a line, revise it, get rid of it, and write another.
- He assumed that certain symbols (like flowers, for instance) would have the same associations for his readers, even if that seems crazy now.
- "It did not occur to me then that far from being a veil, those poor words were so opaque that, in fact, they formed a wall in which all one could distinguish were the well-worn bits of the major and minor poets I imitated." (11.3.3)