As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.
More Quotes from T. S. Eliot:
It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.T. S. Eliot
Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.
T. S. Eliot
If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby "it."
T. S. Eliot
All significant truths are private truths. As they become public they cease to become truths; they become facts, or at best, part of the public character; or at worst, catchwords.
T. S. Eliot
She smooths the hair of the grass.
T. S. Eliot
The soul is so far from being a monad that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself but to interpret ourself to ourself.
T. S. Eliot
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