Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.
AL ALVAREZThe better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.
More Al Alvarez Quotes
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Mass 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.
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Since what happened in them was beyond the imagination, it was therefore also beyond art and all those human values on which art is traditionally based.
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When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself.
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It is easy to smile at an insult and pretend it’s funny when the person insulting you is hosing you with money.
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Hold’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.
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Each sporadic burst of work, each minor success and disappointment, each moment of calm and relaxation.
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In the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.
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The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.
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I absolutely don’t believe in anything. Full stop. Including luck.
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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.
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Now, if, as I think, writing should be, it’s a kind of risky trade.
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No man kills himself unless there is something wrong with his life.
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Seemed merely a temporary halt on my steady descent through layer after layer of depression, like an elevator stopping for a moment on the way down to the basement.
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To 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.
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Divorce transforms habit into drama.
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