W. H. Auden Quotes
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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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A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
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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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A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
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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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All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
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One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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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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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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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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'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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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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God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good.
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Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.
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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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It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, 'What should I write at the age of sixty-four,' but never, 'What should I write in 1940.'
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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
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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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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.
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Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.
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A million eyes, a million boots in line, Without expression, waiting for a sign.
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In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.