No man kills himself unless there is something wrong with his life.
AL ALVAREZEach sporadic burst of work, each minor success and disappointment, each moment of calm and relaxation.
More Al Alvarez Quotes
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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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You pause and attend: the heart beats in your chest; outside, the trees are thick with new leaves, a swallow dips over them, the light moves, people are going about their business.
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Despite the hundreds of attempts, police terror and the concentration camps have proved to be more or less impossible subjects for the artist.
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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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The real resistance now is to an art which forces its audience to recognize and accept imaginatively.
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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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Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.
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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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The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.
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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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He pays for his social ease with what used to be called his soul – his discriminations, his uniqueness, his psychic energy, his self.
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Now, if, as I think, writing should be, it’s a kind of risky trade.
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I absolutely don’t believe in anything. Full stop. Including luck.
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I’m good at reading people.
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Divorce transforms habit into drama.
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