With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.
Bio: Thomas William "Tom" Shales was an American critic of television programming and operations. He was best known as TV critic for The Washington Post; in 1988, Shales received the Pulitzer Prize.
