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.
When you make a bet, you're saying something.
I mean being a writer is like being a psychoanalyst, but you don't get any patients.
I absolutely don't believe in anything. Full stop. Including luck.
Now, if, as I think, writing should be, it's a kind of risky trade.
The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.