W. H. Auden Quotes
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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.
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To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however 'good' I may become, remains unchanged.
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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The poet who writes 'free' verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.
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I am beginning to lose patience With my personal relations. They are not deep And they are not cheap.
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Put the car away; when life fails What's the good of going to Wales? Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do?
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One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ.
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We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die.
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Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
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The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.
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A crowd of ordinary decent folk Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke As three pale figures were led forth and bound To three posts driven upright in the ground.
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I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them.
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'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
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When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
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Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
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A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
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Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last; Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
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When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.
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It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
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What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
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A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it. But it is unbecoming in an artist to talk about inspiration; that is the reader's business.
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In all technologically 'advanced' countries, fashion has replaced tradition, so that involuntary membership in a society can no longer provide a feeling of community.