Caitlin Thomas
Caitlin Thomas
Caitlin Thomaswas the wife of the poet and writer Dylan Thomas. Their marriage was a stormy affair, fuelled by alcohol and infidelity, though the couple remained together until Dylan's death in 1953. After her husband's death she wrote the book Leftover Life to Kill, an account of her self-exile to Italy. She paints a picture of a grieving widow seeking solace in distance, a younger lover, and alcohol...
pain book learning
none of what I know is out of books. ... I prefer tactual learning. Touching, on the quick of the sore nail, of present, mobile life. To toy, to gnaw, to tear: at the living element of pain. Like at a living drumstick.
eye reality hands
So it is useless to evade reality, because it only makes it more virulent in the end. But instead, look steadfastly into the slit, pin-pointed, malignant eyes of reality: as an old-hand trainer dominates his wild beasts. Take it by the scruff of the neck, and shake the evil intent out of it; till it rattles out harmlessly, like gall bladder stones, fossilized on the floor.
bears ridicule
Love can bear anything better than ridicule.
eye reality hands
Fearful as reality is, it is less fearful than evasions of reality. Look steadfastly into the slit, pinpointed malignant eyes of reality as an old-hand trainer dominates his wild beasts.
opposites advice soul
But there is that about well-intentioned advice that has the opposite effect of the one intended, and causes a Spanish fly of perversity to enter into the hitherto passive soul.
strong drinking order
there is this malign curse laid on dipsomaniacs. That they must absolutely have a drink: in order to feel strong enough to stop drinking.
running creativity effort
Anyone who has attempted to create knows the hellishness of it, which consists in the final inescapability from it. Knows that anything, however deadly humdrum to drug the senses, is preferable to it. Knows the gigantic effort to get started on the boundless, unwieldy, shapeless material; the forest of hesitations; of what to keep and what to throw out; the running-out terror and reluctance in one of finishing.
children thinking would-be
Anybody who thinks there is any vague chance of adult exchange with a child is up the spout; and would be much less disappointed if they recognized the chasm unbridgeably dividing them.
drinking poor alcoholism
anybody who drinks seriously is poor: so poor, poor, extra poor, me.
drinking men law
There is a brotherliness about a drinking person, which is coldly lacking in the straight and narrow enemies of drink; the difference between the two is more marked than nationality or belief: it is an opposite species altogether. It is against the unwritten laws of congeniality for them to mix. For me, a man who does not drink is distinctly indecent ...
men want virtue
Virtue in a man doesn't make you want to grab him.
men tyranny dont-trust
I don't trust sentimentality in men; it goes with tyranny; you can't have one without the other.
america london too-much
In America they make too much fuss of poets; in London they make too little.
jealousy necks lifelong
Jealousy is the lifelong noose hanging about the neck of love.