The point is that it looks like gambling because the language of the game is money.

The point is that it looks like gambling because the language of the game is money.

In [The New Poetry] I had attacked the British poets' nervous preference for gentility above all else, and their avoidance of the uncomfortable, destructive truths both of the inner life and of the present time.

The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.

When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself. You pause and attend: the heart beats in your chest; outside, the trees are thick with new leaves, a swallow dips over them, the light moves, people are going about their business.

Divorce transforms habit into drama.

I mean being a writer is like being a psychoanalyst, but you don't get any patients.