Edmund Wilson Hands Quotations

A young poet in America should not be advised at the outset to give up all for the Muse-to seclude himself in the country, to live hand from mouth in Greenwich Village or to escape to the Riviera. I should not advise him even to become a magazine editor or work in a publisher's office. The poet would do better to study a profession, to become a banker or a public official or even to go in for the movies.

The cruelest thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg.

I think with my right hand.

On the one hand, I have wanted to supply documentation on myself by including material relevant to my emotions and ideas in my youth; and, on the other, not to let myself down by publishing inferior material. My poetry comes under the latter head. My only advice to the reader is to skip any verse that he sees coming.

I really can't stand any more to pay for a burst of animation when someone comes in for drinks with a depressed and low-keyed next day, in which I have to go around on my hands and knees.

The only thing that we can really make is our work, and deliberate work of the mind, imagination and hand, done, as Nietzsche said, ‘notwithstanding,’ in the long run remakes the world.