Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.
Personal columnists are jackals and no jackal has been known to live on grass once he had learned about meat – no matter who killed the meat for him.
Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.
You’re beautiful, like a May fly.
He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled...
Never sit a table when you can stand at the bar.
Not the why but the what.
We have very primative emotions. It’s impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.
We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.
Religion is the opium of the poor.
Some writers are only born to help another writer write one sentence.
The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it.
It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.
Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too.
This was a big storm and he might as well enjoy it. It was ruining everything, but you might as well enjoy it.
“And you’ll always love me, won’t you?” “Yes.” “And the rain won’t make any difference?” “No.”
But perhaps he had enough animal strength and detached intelligence that he could make another start.
I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.