Quotes from W.H. Auden

Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.

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.

A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.

Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.

Without art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without science, we should always worship false gods.

We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.

Drama is based on the Mistake.

Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead.

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.

And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.

Healing is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.

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.

Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.

I used to try and concentrate the poem so much that there wasn't a word that wasn't essential. This leads to becoming boring and constipated.

Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society must take the place of the victim, and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness.

The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.

Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.

We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and see our illusions die.

Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood; But noble platitudes — ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.

The Three Wiseman: The weather has been awful, The countryside is dreary, Marsh, jungle, rock; and echoes mock, Calling our hope unlawful; But a silly song can help along Yours ever and sincerely: At least we know for certain that we are three old sinners, that this journey is much too long, that we want our dinners, and miss our wives, our books, our dogs, but have only the vaguest idea why we are what we are. To discover how to be human now Is the reason we follow this star.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.

For the others, like me, there is only the flash Of negative knowledge, the night when, drunk, one Staggers to the bathroom and stares in the glass To meet one's madness