ROBERT ROTH: Going against the tide, no matter how gracefully, will beat you up after a while — all artists know this.

Even non conformists conform, they conform to non conformity itself

We must beware of yielding to the pressure of a spirit of cowardly conformity which proclaims itself everybody's friend in the hope that everybody will obligingly return the compliment.

I am neither for conformity nor non-conformity. I am for individuality. If one's individuality is in effect non-conformity, then so be it. But basically, one's individuality consists of conformity--to one's self.

Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.

No one knows, at sight a masterpiece.
And give up verse, my boy,
There's nothing in it.

Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me:
Don't kick against the pricks,
Accept opinion. The Nineties tried your game
And died, there's nothing in it.