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In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.

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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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
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The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.
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Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.
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What living occasion can, Be just to the absent?
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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
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When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
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A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
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See without looking, hear without listening, breathe without asking.
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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
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We must love one another or die
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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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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
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What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed?
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Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
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Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
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All the literati keep An imaginary friend.
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Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
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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.
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The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
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