Everyone my age had written a novel and I was still having difficulty writing a paragraph.

We think. We are not peasants. We are mechanics. But even the peasants know better than to believe in a war. Everybody hates war. There is a class that control a country that is stupid and down not realise anything and never can. That is why we have this war. Also they make money out of it.

You'll lose it, if you talk about it

Always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot i.e. loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better) you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.

Pound's crazy. All poets are.... They have to be. You don't put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.