Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes
None of us older writers had gone through such a school. We are all self-taught. And, of course, there is always, in such a school, the danger of goose-stepping, uniformed ranks. But the Serapion Brethren have already, it seems to me, outgrown this danger. Each of them has his own individuality and his own handwriting. The common thing they have derived from the studio is the art of writing with ninety-proof ink, the art of eliminating everything that is superfluous, which is, perhaps, more difficult than writing.
Quotes to Explore
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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I was at art school that had quite a celebrated film course as well. I tried for that film course when I was 18, but they said I was too young. I tried this audio and visual design course instead. Two years later, I reapplied for that higher course, but they said I was still too young and to try in five years.
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I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.
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As I'm writing, certain things become clear to me and certain things begin to feel right and make sense. The pieces start to fall into place.
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Besides black art, there is only automation and mechanization.
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Art is always criticized and always an outsider gets the blame.
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Writing books is a nice retreat. There's nothing quite like diving into a book for a few hours. That is a big time vacation.
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It was failing part of my Ph.D. that led me into novel-writing. By then I was 29, had remarried and had a second baby. It struck me that I'd lost my path in life and I felt frustrated. That's when I started to write.
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I think that the idea that I'm writing for many more people than I ever imagined has created a certain general responsibility that is literary and political. There's even pride involved, in not wanting to fall short of what I did before.
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Hard writing makes easy reading.
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One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.
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Writing about a person whose struggle you wish you could solve is an act of compassion and also, frankly, opportunism.
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I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
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Be aware of who in your life is actually interested in hearing you discuss your writing, and who's just asking to be polite. Listening to writers talk about their work is often excruciatingly dull.
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There's a rule of writing: if everything is funny, nothing is funny; if everything is sad, nothing is sad. You want that contrast.
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Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.
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My art springs from my desire to have things in the world which would otherwise never be there.
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In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.
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I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.
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I don't like when a song goes from one mood to another unless it's going to be out of sight.
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I live in Rome and five minutes from my flat is a church where you can walk in and see this beautiful Caravaggio. Just the way this man uses dark paint: dark to create dark to create dark, the layering of the darkness in his work. I just race home: I want to create!
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Personality and mind, like moustaches, belong to a certain age. They are a deformity in a child.... Leave his sensibilities, his emotions, his spirit, and his mind severely alone. There is the devil in mothers, that they must provoke personalresponse from their infants.
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I played in football games where you walk off the field and the scoreboard didn't end up the way you wanted. But you knew that you really did give it all. And the other team was too strong.
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None of us older writers had gone through such a school. We are all self-taught. And, of course, there is always, in such a school, the danger of goose-stepping, uniformed ranks. But the Serapion Brethren have already, it seems to me, outgrown this danger. Each of them has his own individuality and his own handwriting. The common thing they have derived from the studio is the art of writing with ninety-proof ink, the art of eliminating everything that is superfluous, which is, perhaps, more difficult than writing.
