“It is said there are flowers that bloom only once in a hundred years. Why should there not be some that bloom once in a thousand, in ten thousand years? Perhaps we never know about them simply because this "once in a thousand years" has come today.”
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, A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin“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")”
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We“They say there is a kind of flower that blooms only once a century, Then couldn't there be one that flowers only once every thousand years - or once every ten thousand years? Maybe there are and we just don't know it because today is itself that once-in-a-thousand-year moment.”
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We“And I learned from my own experience that laughter was the most potent weapon: laughter can kill everything.”
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We“The only reason I'm writing this down is to show how human reason, even very sharp and exact human reason, can get crazily confused and thrown off the track.”
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We“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“I'm like a machine being run over its RPM limit. The bearings are overheating: a minute longer and the metal will melt and start dripping and that will be the end of everything. I need a 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”
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We“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.”
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We“The flame will cool tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow (in the Book of Genesis days are equal to years, ages). But someone must see this already today, and speak heretically today about tomorrow. Heretics are the only (bitter) remedy against the entropy of human thought.”
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We“And how can there be a final revolution? There is no final one. The number of revolutions is infinite.”
Yevgeny Zamyatin