Quotes by Al Alvarez

And if you can't keep your ego under control, it's going to cost you a lot of money.
– Al Alvarez
Because one of the curious things about writing is that it doesn't matter how perfect you try and get it, that you never quite get the sentence right, or there are things that you miss and, you know, you have work repeated a couple of pages later that shouldn't have been repeated.
– Al Alvarez
But in a tournament, you can be said in for all your money at any point so you can't make any mistakes so you have to, it's all about where you're sitting at the table.
– Al Alvarez
I absolutely don't believe in anything. Full stop. Including luck.
– Al Alvarez
I could think of worse ways of going than at the poker table.
– Al Alvarez
I had attacked the British poets' nervous preference for gentility above all else.
– Al Alvarez
I hate writing.
– Al Alvarez
I mean being a writer is like being a psychoanalyst, but you don't get any patients.
– Al Alvarez
I mean to say, this is the book and I really loathe it and I can't imagine what a nice Jewish boy like me ever, how I ever got into this dreadful trade.
– Al Alvarez
I think one of the interesting things about poker is that once you let your ego in, you're done for.
– Al Alvarez
I'm good at reading people.
– Al Alvarez
It's going to finish when I fold my hand and go up to the big poker game in the sky.
– Al Alvarez
Now, if, as I think, writing should be, it's a kind of risky trade.
– Al Alvarez
The fact that we write about it doesn't mean we play better than ordinary players at all.
– Al Alvarez
The point is that it looks like gambling because the language of the game is money.
– Al Alvarez
When you make a bet, you're saying something.
– Al Alvarez
Yes, I think poker really isn't gambling.
– Al Alvarez