Pearls from artists* # 192
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Interviewer: Do you have any unfinished poems that you look at occasionally?
T.S. Eliot: I haven’t much in that way, no. As a rule, with me an unfinished thing is a thing that might as well be rubbed out. It’s better, if there’s something good in it that I might make use of elsewhere, to leave it at the back of my mind than on paper in a drawer. If I leave it in a drawer it remains the same thing but if it’s in the memory it becomes transformed into something else.
Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews 2nd Series, edited by George Plimpton and introduced by Van Wyck Brooks
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Posted on April 20, 2016, in 2016, An Artist's Life, Art in general, Black Paintings, Creative Process, Inspiration, Pearls from Artists, Photography, Quotes, Working methods and tagged "Dichotomy", "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews Second Series", becomes, better, drawer, edited, elsewhere, George Plimpton, haven't, interviewer, introduced, memory, occassionally, pastel, remains, rubbed, sandpaper, something, T.S. Eliot, transformed, unfinished, Van Wyck Brooks. Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Pearls from artists* # 192.