T. S. Eliot

"As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing."

"Should I after tea and cakes and ices have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?"

"Poetry is a mug's game."