Poetry and Ambition

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”​

― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism​

I tell my students to liberate a certain part of their mind that, because they are good, humble people they may have likely suppressed, and that's the part that wants to be known, that wants to be famous or rich or whatever. I say that part is not entirely separate from the part of you that wants to be a great writer. Which is not separate from the... See more