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 ALVAREZSince 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.
AL ALVAREZSeemed 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.
AL ALVAREZThe better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.
AL ALVAREZThe point is that it looks like gambling because the language of the game is money.
AL ALVAREZIt puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life.
AL ALVAREZI’m good at reading people.
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 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 ALVAREZWhen you make a bet, you’re saying something.
AL ALVAREZEach sporadic burst of work, each minor success and disappointment, each moment of calm and relaxation.
AL ALVAREZPerhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.
AL ALVAREZThe real resistance now is to an art which forces its audience to recognize and accept imaginatively.
AL ALVAREZTwentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself.
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 ALVAREZDespair, in short, seeks its own environment as surely as water finds its own level.
AL ALVAREZ