#ordeal

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. ↗

— John Berryman

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#artists #beethoven #goya #literature #luck

There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends. ↗

— Sylvia Plath

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#humor #shared-ordeal #friendship

The divorce was rough on all of us. I don't blame Hollywood for my family's problems. But having all of it reported in the press made it more of an ordeal. ↗

— Kieran Culkin

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#divorce #family #having #hollywood #i