We Are All So To Speak Intellectuals

When You Begin To Read A Poem You Are Entering A Foreign Country Whose Laws And Language And Life Are A Kind Of Translation Of Your Own; But To Accept It Because Its Stews Taste Exactly Like Your Old Mother's Hash, Or To Reject It Because The Owl-headed Goddess Of Wisdom In Its Temple Is Fatter Than The Statue Of Liberty, Is An Equal Mark Of That Want Of Imagination, That Inaccessibility To Experience, Of Which Each Of Us Who Dies A Natural Death Will Die.

The Usual Criticism Of A Novel About An Artist Is That, No Matter How Real He Is As A Man, He Is Not Real To Us As An Artist, Since We Have To Take On Trust The Works Of Art He Produces.

I Simply Don't Want The Poems Mixed Up With My Life Or Opinions Or Picture Or Any Other Regrettable Concomitants. I Look Like A Bear And Live In A Cave; But You Should Worry.

Most People Don't Listen To Classical Music At All, But To Rock-and-roll Or Hillbilly Songs Or Some Album Named Music To Listen To Music By.

If We Meet An Honest And Intelligent Politician, A Dozen, A Hundred, We Say They Aren't Like Politicians At All, And Our Category Of Politicians Stays Unchanged; We Know What Politicians Are Like.