Thursday, March 17, 2005

Flann O'Brien

"Having considered the matter in -- of course -- all its aspects, I have decided that there is no excuse for poetry. Poetry gives no adequate return in money, it is expensive to print by reason of the waste of space occasioned by its form, and nearly always promulgates illusory concepts of life. But a better case for the banning of all poetry is the simple fact that most of it is bad. Nobody is going to manufacture a thousand tons of jam in the expectation that five tons may be eatable."

Of course they would!