# Quote — Joseph Brodsky, Less Than One

> The formula for prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time. This is what really bothers you, that you can't win. Prison is lack of alternatives, and the telescopic predictability of the future is what drives you crazy.

- Author: [Joseph Brodsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-brodsky.md)
- Book: [Less Than One](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-brodsky/less-than-one.md)
- Page: 28
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Brodsky#Less_Than_One:_Selected_Essays_(1986)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-brodsky/less-than-one/the-formula-for

## More from this book

> It is the army that finally makes a citizen of you; without it you still have a chance, however slim, to remain a human being.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-brodsky/less-than-one/it-is-the.md)

> This is just one example of the trimming of the self that — along with the language itself, where verbs and nouns changed places as freely as one dare to have them do so — bred in us such an overpowering sense of ambivalence that in ten years we ended up with a willpower in no way superior to a seaweed’s.

p. 14 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-brodsky/less-than-one/this-is-just.md)