Extended excerpt  [Autobiography]:

“A poet’s autobiography is his poetry. Anything else can be only a footnote. A poet is a poet only when the reader sees him whole with all his feelings, all his thoughts, and all his actions, as if the reader held him in the hollow of his hand. To be entitled to write with merciless truth about others, the poet must be mercilessly truthful when he writes about himself.” (p. 11)

Source: Library – A Precocious Autobiography (1963) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No. 804721660

Extended excerpt: [Autobiography] “That day I found out that all values in this world are more or less questionable, but that the most important thing in life is human kindness.” (p. 49)

Source: Library – A Precocious Autobiography (1963) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No. 804721660

Extended excerpt: [Poem]

“Listen to them,

           but take no heed.

                                               Older!

Be equal to your talent, not your age.

At times let the gap between them be embarrassing

Fear not

to be young, precocious.” (p. 23)

Russian text note: The original Russian text is available alongside the English translation in this edition of The Poetry of YevgenyYevtushenko 1953 to 1965. The book can be accessed online via Open Library [free subscription service], openlibrary.org.

Source: Library – The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko 1953 to 1965 (1965) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No.639977174

Extended excerpt: [Poem]

“Existence is an equilibrium of sorts.

A show of envy is an insult to oneself.

Another’s happiness with expiate

for any misfortune you might suffer.” (p. 183)

Russian text note: The original Russian text is available alongside the English translation in this edition of The Poetry of YevgenyY evtushenko 1953 to 1965. The book can be accessed online via Open Library [free subscription service], openlibrary.org.

Source link: Library – The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko 1953 to 1965 (1965) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No.639977174

Extended excerpt  [Speaking to a class of University of Oklahoma students in Tulsa]:

“Before dismissing his students for their holiday break, he urged them to remember that each individual has the potential to shape history. “Someone is near,” he said, pausing for effect as he searched the room with his piercing, deep-set eyes. “I feel it. Someone always has to be the leader of a generation. Someone has to be born. Why not one of you?”

Source link: “A Russian Poet Steeped in America” (11 December 2003) The New York Times archives [subscription service]: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/11/books/a-russian-poet-steeped-in-america.html

Extended excerpt  [Referring to Gabriel García Márquez]: “In a conversation later, Mr. Yevtushenko said he admired many American writers, but sees none with the stature of Gabriel García Márquez. (“Everyone is reading him now, even maybe in the bellybutton of world culture that is Tulsa.”).”

Source link: “A Russian Poet Steeped in America” (11 December 2003) The New York Times archives [subscription service]: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/11/books/a-russian-poet-steeped-in-america.html