“To tell the truth, I myself never quite feel that I know what I am talking about — if I did, and when I do, the thing written seems nothing to me. However, what I do write and allow to survive I always feel is worth while and that nobody else has ever come as near as I have to the thing I have intimated if not expressed. To me it's a matter of first understanding that which may not be put to words. I might add more but to no purpose. In a sense, I must express myself, you're right, but always completely incomplete if that means anything.”

— William Carlos Williams

To Harriet Monroe (14 October 1913), published in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957) edited by John C. Thirlwall, p. 26
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William Carlos Williams83

American poet 1883–1963

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