Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko Quotes

there should be no love just because, but only 'love because of. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

On days like this you can see into the bluest depth of things, their previously unknown, astonishing equations - you see them in even the most familiar everyday thing. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

In order to establish the true value of a function, one must take it to its limits. And it's clear that yesterday's ridiculous "dissolution into the universe," taken to its limits, is death. Because death is exactly that: the ultimate dissolution of my self into the universe. And hence, if "L" signifies love and "D" signifies death, then L=f(D) - that is, love is a function of death. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

The 1960s was a period when writers in the West began to be aware of the extraordinary eloquence and popular attraction of the Russian poets such as Yevtushenko and Voznesensky - oppositional figures who could draw crowds. The Russian poets recited from memory as a matter of course. ~ James Fenton

We need writers who fear nothing. ("Our Goal") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

The same joy is in a stone which, thrown aloft, hesitates a little at the height of its flight and then rushes down to the ground. It is the same with a man when in his final convulsion he takes a last deep breath and dies. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy. ("Tomorrow") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

How do you know nonsense isn't a good thing? if human nonsense had been nurtured and developed for centuries, just as intelligence has, then perhaps something extraordinarily previous could have come from it. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers. ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

I am like a machine being driven to excessive rotations: the bearings are incandescing and, in a minute, melted metal will begin to drip and everything will turn to nothing. Quick: get cold water, logic. I am pouring it over myself by the bucketload but the logic sizzles on the hot bearings and dissipates elusive white steam into the air. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Love and hunger rule the world. Ergo, to rule the world, one must master love and hunger. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

I'm like a machine being run over its RPM limit: The bearings are overheating - a minute longer, and the metal is going to melt and start dripping and that'll be the end of everything. I need a quick splash of cold water, logic. I pour it on in buckets, but the logic hisses on the hot bearings and dissipates in the air as a fleeting white mist.
Well, of course, it's clear that you can't establish a function without taking into account what its limit is. And it's also clear that what I felt yesterday, that stupid "dissolving in the universe," if you take it to its limit, is death. Because that's exactly what death is - the fullest possible dissolving of myself into the universe. Hence, if we let L stand for love and D for death, then L = f (D), i.e., love and death ... ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

In my blood there is no Jewish blood. In their callous rage, all anti-Semites must hate me now as a Jew. For that reason I am a true Russian. ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Only lifeless mechanisms move along faultlessly straight lines and compass circles. In art the surest way to destroy is to canonize one given form and one philosophy: that which is canonized quickly dies of obesity, of entropy. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Is it possible that that insanity called love and jealousy does exist, and not only in the idiotic books of the ancients? What seems most strange is that I, I! ... Equations, formulae, figures, and suddenly this! I can't understand it, I can't! ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

If you want to conquer conceit, do not desire praise, laurels, nice garments, respect, favor, but like to be blamed and slandered by people ... ~ Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov

It's clear: if there is no good reason for enviousness, the denominator of the fraction of happiness is brought to zero and the fraction is transformed into a glorious infinity. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Dogma, static positions, consonance - all these are obstacles to catching the disease of art, at least in its more complex forms. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

All truths are erroneous. This is the very essence of the dialectical process: today's truths become errors tomorrow; there is no final number. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

You know... or maybe you don't know... I don't know how to write this-but never mind: Now you know that there will never be a day for me, or a morning, or a springtime, without you. Because for me R is nothing more than... but you don't care about this. At any rate, I'm very grateful to him. I don't know what I would have done, alone, without him, these last few days. During these days and nights I've lived through ten or maybe twenty years. My room has seemed round and not square, and endless, round and round and all the same, with no doors anywhere.

I can't live without you-because I love you. because I see. I understand, that you don't need anybody, anybody on earth, except her, that other one, and... look, that's just it, if I love you, then I have to...

I just need two or three more days to try and put the pieces of myself back into some semblance of the former O-90-and then I'll go and fill our the form myself, that I'm withdrawing my registration for you, and you'll be better off, you'll be fine. I'll never come again. Goodbye.

O. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Be equal to your talent, not your age. At times let the gap between them be embarrassing. ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

I felt I hadn't breathed since early morning, that my heart had not beat-and only now for the first time I took a breath, only now the floodgates in my chest opened... ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

You are afraid of it because it is stronger than you; you hate it because you are afraid of it; you love it because you cannot subdue it to your will. Only the unsubduable can be loved. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

I am imprudent, I am sick, I have a soul, I am a microbe. But isn't blooming a sickness? Doesn't it hurt when a bud splits open? ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

And that was when I learned from my own experience that a laugh can be a terrifying weapon. With a laugh you can kill even murder itself. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

There is no joy nobler than suffering for the sake of love for man. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

No Jewish blood runs among my blood,but I am as bitterly and hardly hatedby every anti-semiteas if I were a Jew. By thisI am a Russian. ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

I stopped and listened. But all I could hear was.. a kind of thudding, and not in me but somewhere near me ... my heart. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin