W. H. Auden Quotes

When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.

W. H. Auden

• Work
• Art
• Taste
• Twenties

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Quotes to Explore

• The nations of Africa, as is true of every continent of the world, from time to time dispute among themselves. These quarrels must be confined to this continent and quarantined from the contamination of non-African interference.

  

  Haile Selassie
  • Time
  • World
  • True

• Live TV has an amazing pace to it. You've got to be able to think quick, make changes last minute, and be funny and fast.

  

  J. B. Smoove
  • Live
  • Funny
  • Amazing

• I love surfing more than cricket, more interesting and you meet great people.

  

  Hansie Cronje
  • People
  • Great
  • Love

• Sometimes there's a snobbery among literary types that these people don't really get it, but in a lot of ways they get it more than the literati. There's a culture in the background that they understand and know. They get that deeper level.

  

  Irvine Welsh
  • People
  • Culture
  • Sometimes

• I had such an amazing time filming 'Major Movie Star.' I loved everyone in the cast. They all brought their own spirit to the film, and I hope that is what will be seen on screen.

  

  Olesya Rulin
  • Time
  • Movie
  • Hope

• My parents were both entrepreneurs.

  

  Caprice Bourret
  • Parents
  • Both
  • Were

• It's all part of my journey - I've done a lot of stupid things, but you learn by your mistakes.

  

  Ozzy Osbourne Black Sabbath
  • Done
  • Journey
  • Stupid

• Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

  

  Balthasar Klossowski de Rola
  • Work
  • Great
  • Experience

• He also didn't like a lock of my hair and said that he couldn't get into the moment without the hair being just right. I quietly knew that he was anxious and that the hairdo wasn't the real issue. But we all let it go and came back to the scene sometime later.

  

  Madeleine Stowe
  • Real
  • Hair
  • Moment

• Were women meant to do everything - work and have babies?

  

  Candice Bergen
  • Work
  • Women
  • Everything

• I didn't want to be an author; I wanted to be a scientist. Not that I didn't love literature, but I couldn't distinguish it from reading, and reading was already my default activity, almost like breathing.

  

  Barbara Ehrenreich
  • Love
  • Want
  • Reading

• When I took over as president, I studied the Constitution, and the more I studied it, the more I realised that it does not prevent the president of India from giving the nation a vision. So when I went and presented this vision in Parliament and in legislative assemblies; everyone welcomed it, irrespective of party affiliations.

  

  A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
  • Giving
  • Party
  • Vision

• People employed in financial institutions are rarely interesting and even more rarely likable.

  

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • People
  • Interesting
  • Financial

• Our family suffers from a hereditary condition called, generally, mental illness. Specifically, multiple family members in successive generations have suffered from either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

  

  Victor LaValle
  • Family
  • Mental Illness

• Ultimately life is disease, death and oblivion. It's still better than high school.

  

  Dan Savage
  • Life
  • School
  • High

• Most of those coming from the mainland are very destitute, almost naked. I am trying to find places for those able to work, and provide for them as best I can, so as to lighten the burden on the Government as much as possible, while at the same time they learn to respect themselves by earning their own living.

  

  Harriet Tubman
  • Time
  • Work
  • Trying

• I am not afraid to go to jail.

  

  Ferdinand Marcos
  • Afraid
  • Jail

• Death is not something any one of us want to dwell on, but we must all confront it at some point.

  

  Lara Giddings
  • Want
  • Death
  • Point

• Well that's a polite thing to say but that's fucking ridiculous.

  

  Jack White The White Stripes

• Just being able to get paid to do something you love is a wonderful thing. That said, a writer's daily routine, unless you're Dominick Dunne, isn't exactly glamorous. Much of it amounts to drudgery, staring at a computer screen all day in a room by yourself, juggling nouns and verbs to make a demanding editor happy.

  

  Bryan Burrough
  • Happy
  • Daily

• I'd swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet.

  

  J. D. Salinger
  • People
  • God
  • Hate

• Nothing brings me more happiness than trying to help the most vulnerable people in society. It is a goal and an essential part of my life - a kind of destiny. Whoever is in distress can call on me. I will come running wherever they are.

  

  Princess Diana
  • People
  • Life
  • Trying

• When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.

  

  W. H. Auden
  • Work
  • Art
  • Taste