Quote

Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself -- the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

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Yevgeny Zamyatin
Age: 53 †
Born: 1884
Born: January 1
Died: 1937
Died: January 1
Author
Engineer
Librettist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Prosaist
Satirist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin
Eugene Zamyatin
Art
Perhaps
Crossings
Self
Name
Superfluous
Whole
Greatest
Removed
Must
Names
Decide
Writing
Literature
Requires
Even
Eye
Parts
Sharpest
Difficult
Sacrifice
Ruthlessness
Inspirational
Toward
Crossing

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But 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. (The North)
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Revolution is everywhere, in everything. There is no final revolution, no final number.
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Dogma, static positions, consonance - all these are obstacles to catching the disease of art, at least in its more complex forms.
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There is no final one revolutions are infinite.
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The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)
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The highly complex, almost mathematical, nature of music creates for it an ironclad protection against the microbes of dilletantism, which penetrate much more easily into the fields of painting, literature, and the theater.
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Philosophers of genius, children, and the people are equally wise - because they ask equally foolish questions. Foolish to a civilized man who has a well-furnished European apartment with an excellent toilet and a well-furnished dogma.
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The purpose of art ... is not to reflect life but to organize it, to build it.
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The nights were long, like the braids of a pretty girl, and the days were short, like a girl's sense. (The North)
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The most agonising thing is to drop doubt into a man about his being a reality, three-dimensional - and not some other kind of reality.
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We need writers who fear nothing. (Our Goal)
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The whole world is one immense woman, and we are in her very womb, we are not yet born, we are joyfully ripening.
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You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.
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The most wonderful thing in life is to be delirious and the most wonderful kind of delirium is being in love.
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We have long become overgrown with calluses we no longer hear people being killed. (X)
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The mighty power of logic cleanses all it touches.
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What is it to you if I don't want others to want for me, if I want to want myself - if I want the impossible.
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The microspeed of the tongue ought to be always slightly less than the microspeed of the thoughts and certainly not ever the reverse.
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A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.
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What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons... we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless Why? and What next?.
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