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No hero is mortal till he dies.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
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Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Demise
Mortal
Mortals
Till
Hero
Dies

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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.
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When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.
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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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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.
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All the literati keep An imaginary friend.
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The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
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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.
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Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.
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Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.
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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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Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
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A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.
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A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship.
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Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.
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Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
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