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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.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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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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We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.
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Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel.
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With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse
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One can only blaspheme if one believes.
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Does God judge us by appearances? I Suspect that He does.
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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Let me see what I wrote so I know what I think
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I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
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Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters How well they understood Its human position how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.
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Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer writer for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer poetry would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry.
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To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.
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I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.
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Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
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The lights must never go out, The music must always play
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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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It's a pity I am so impatient and careless, as any ordinary person could learn all the techniques of photography in a week. It is the democratic art, i.e. technical skill is practically eliminated - the more foolproof cameras become with focusing and exposure gadgets the better - and artistic quality depends only on choice of subject.
W. H. Auden