Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez
Alfred Alvarezis an English poet, novelist, essayist and critic who publishes under the name A. Alvarez and Al Alvarez...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth5 August 1929
games gambling casinos
The point is that it looks like gambling because the language of the game is money.
games gambling cards
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.
couple curious later matter miss pages perfect quite repeated sentence work
Because one of the curious things about writing is that it doesn't matter how perfect you try and get it, that you never quite get the sentence right, or there are things that you miss and, you know, you have work repeated a couple of pages later that shouldn't have been repeated.
above attacked british nervous poet preference
I had attacked the British poets' nervous preference for gentility above all else.
suicide moving heart
When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself. 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.
drama divorce habit
Divorce transforms habit into drama.
art artist vulnerable
The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.
art may coherence
Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, 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.
mistake climbing routine-life
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. It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life. Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.
believe luck dont-believe
I absolutely don't believe in anything. Full stop. Including luck.
writing thinking kind
Now, if, as I think, writing should be, it's a kind of risky trade.
depression disappointment relaxation
Each sporadic burst of work, each minor success and disappointment, each moment of calm and relaxation, 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.
reading people
I'm good at reading people.
men water despair
Despair, in short, seeks its own environment as surely as water finds its own level.