in their nerve ends, not the facts of life but the facts of death and violence: absurd, random, gratuitous, unjustified, and inescapably part of the society we have created.
AL ALVAREZin their nerve ends, not the facts of life but the facts of death and violence: absurd, random, gratuitous, unjustified, and inescapably part of the society we have created.
AL ALVAREZThe real resistance now is to an art which forces its audience to recognize and accept imaginatively.
AL ALVAREZDespite the hundreds of attempts, police terror and the concentration camps have proved to be more or less impossible subjects for the artist.
AL ALVAREZHe pays for his social ease with what used to be called his soul – his discriminations, his uniqueness, his psychic energy, his self.
AL ALVAREZIt puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life.
AL ALVAREZHold’em is a game of calculated aggression. If your cards are good enough for you to call a bet, they are good enough to raise with.
AL ALVAREZIt is easy to smile at an insult and pretend it’s funny when the person insulting you is hosing you with money.
AL ALVAREZThe better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.
AL ALVAREZNow, if, as I think, writing should be, it’s a kind of risky trade.
AL ALVAREZWhen you make a bet, you’re saying something.
AL ALVAREZTo put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully.
AL ALVAREZEach sporadic burst of work, each minor success and disappointment, each moment of calm and relaxation.
AL ALVAREZI absolutely don’t believe in anything. Full stop. Including luck.
AL ALVAREZPerhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.
AL ALVAREZMass democracy, mass morality and the mass media thrive independently of the individual, who joins them only at the cost of at least a partial perversion of his instincts and insights.
AL ALVAREZNo man kills himself unless there is something wrong with his life.
AL ALVAREZ