Russian author (1884-1937)
Art functions pyramidally: all new achievements are based on the utilization of everything that has been accumulated below, at the foundations of the pyramid. Revolutions do not occur here; this field, more than any other, is governed by evolution. And we must know what has been done before us in the field of verbal art. This does not mean that you must follow in trodden paths: you must contribute something of your own. A work of art is of value only when it is original, both in content and in form. But in order to leap upward, it is necessary to take off from the ground. It is essential that there be a ground.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Psychology of Creative Work
And tomorrow--who knows what happens? Do you get it? I don't know and no one knows--it's all unknown! You understand, that this is the end to the Known? This is the new, the improbable, the unpredictable.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
There is an excellent way to make predictions without the slightest risk of error: predict the past.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Future of the Theater
The mighty power of logic cleanses all it touches.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
The knife is the most durable, immortal, the most genius thing that man created. The knife was the guillotine; the knife is the universal means of solving all knots; and along the blade of a knife lies the path of paradox -- the single most worthy path of the fearless mind.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Children are the boldest philosophers. They enter life naked, not covered by the smallest fig leaf of dogma, absolutes, creeds. This is why every question they ask is so absurdly naïve and so frighteningly complex.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters
The whole world is one immense woman, and we are in her very womb, we are not yet born, we are joyfully ripening.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Knowledge! What does that mean? Your knowledge is nothing but cowardice. No, really, that's all it is. You just want to put a little wall around infinity. And you're afraid to look on the other side of that wall.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Nobody heard the deacon cry as he swung the cleaver. Everyone from eighteen to fifty was busy with the peaceful revolutionary work of preparing supper.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Dragon: Fifteen Stories
All women are lips, nothing but lips.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
At night numbers must sleep; it is their duty, just as it is their duty to work in the daytime. Not sleeping at night is a criminal offense.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
The myth about the angel who rebelled against his Lord is the most beautiful of all myths, the proudest, the most revolutionary, the most immortal of them all.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Day and the Age
The art of the word is painting + architecture + music.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The New Russian Prose
I've read and heard a lot of unbelievable stuff about those times when people lived in freedom -- that is, in disorganized wildness.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
You can't plead with autumn. No. The midnight wind stalked through the woods, hooted to frighten you, swept everything away for the approaching winter, whirled the leaves.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
The old, slow, creaking descriptions are a thing of the past; today the rule is brevity -- but every word must be supercharged, high-voltage.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
A Soviet Heretic
Her smile was a bite, and I was its target.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
By complex ways, by looking deep into the dark well of the human soul, full of filth, somewhere at the very bottom of it Chekhov at last found his faith. And this faith turned out to be faith in man, in the power of human progress. And man became his god.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
Chekhov
The nights were long, like the braids of a pretty girl, and the days were short, like a girl's sense.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Dragon: Fifteen Stories