John Berryman
23 citations

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing. ✨ EM Forster's work tailed off once he finally had sex. Better that than a life of despair by Sam Leith, www.theguardian.com. June 13, 2010.

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