Quotes from W. H. Auden

Some books are undeservedly forgotten, none are undeservedly remembered

Knowledge may have its purposes, but guessing is always more fun than knowing.

Poetry is the only art people haven't yet learnt to consume like soup.

The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews.

when the ego disappears, so does power over language.

To save your world, you asked this man to die: Would this man, could he see you now, asked why?

The mass and majesty of this world, all That carries weight and always weighs the same Lay in the hands of others; they were small And could not hope for help and no help came: What their foes like to do was done, their shame Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride And died as men before their bodies died.

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth.

Lo único sensato por parte de un crítico es permanecer en silencio frente a las obras que considera francamente malas, mientras defiende vigorosamente las que cree buenas, sobre todo si estas son ignoradas o menospreciadas por el público.

Thoughts on his own death, like the distant roll of thunder at a picnic.

Always the following wind of history Of others' wisdom makes a buoyant air Till we come suddenly on pockets where Is nothing loud but us; where voices seem Abrupt, untrained, competing with no lie Our fathers shouted once.

Atacar los libros malos no solo supone una pérdida de tiempo, sino que es malo para el carácter. Tratándose de un libro verdaderamente malo, el único interés que puede desprenderse de lo que escriba sobre él tendrá que provenir de mí mismo: de toda la inteligencia, ingenio y malicia que yo consiga desplegar. Es imposible reseñar un gran libro sin presunción.

Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.

for once in our lives / Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

Time breaks the threaded dances And the diver's brilliant bow. (As I Walked Out One Evening)

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That for all they care, I can go to hell.

Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity

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. –

Man is a tempted being, living with what he does and suffers in time, the medium in which he realizes his potential character. The indeterminacy of time means that events never happen once and for all. The good may fall, the bad may repent, and suffering can be, not a simple retribution, but a triumph.

Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.

The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot.

By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.