The fact is that the intrinsic worth of the book, play or whatever the author is trying to sell is the least, last factor in the the whole transaction.
When you're young and you play music, you have a peer group, you come out of a scene. There's a lot of people you know, and then you have some success, and it all goes away.
What call thou solitude? Is not the earth with various living creatures, and the air replenished, and all these at thy command to come and play before thee?
The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images.
Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play.
In foreign affairs we must make up our minds that whether we wish it or not, we are a great people and must play a great part in the world. It is not open to us to choose whether we will play that great part or not.
I appreciate good criticism and I think it's really important. I don't like it when it's consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I've written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it's important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It's killing new plays, demolishing one after another.
Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower The Frost beheads it at its play -- In accidental power -- The blonde Assassin passes on -- The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God.
Man is very well defended against himself... The actual fortress is inaccessible, even invisible to him, unless his friends and enemies play the traitor and conduct him in by a secret path.