Quotes from W.H. Auden

Recipe for the upbringing of a poet: 'As much neurosis as the child can bear.

I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.

Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.

Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know.

Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm;

And none will hear the postman's knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane.

Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers

But once in a while the odd thing happens, Once in a while the dream comes true, And the whole pattern of life is altered, Once in a while the moon turns blue.

Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Like love we don't know where or why Like love we cant compel or fly Like Love we often weep Like Love we seldom keep

Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.

To make one, there must be two.

Poetry makes nothing happen.

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.

A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.

My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.

Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.

We were put on this earth to make things.

The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.

If you want romance, fuck a journalist.