Saturday, April 5, 2014

Never trust a poet who can drive

"Nothing ever happens to novelists. Except - this. They are born. They get sick, they get well, they hang around the inkwell. They leave home, with their stuff in a hired van.  They learn to drive, unlike poets (poets don't drive. Never trust a poet who can drive.  Never trust a poet at the wheel.  If he can drive, distrust the poems). They get married at registry offices. They have children in hospitals - the ordinary miracle. Their parents die - the ordinary disaster. They get divorced or they don't. Their children leave home, learn to drive, get married, have children. They grow old. So nothing ever happens to them, except the universal." - Martin Amis, The Information, p.132

All - in genreal - so true (of the many poets I have known very very few of them drive), and curiously, as with many good novelists, this riff seems to border on poetry.

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