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It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
Composer
Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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England
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Drink
Restraints
Much
Happen
Restraint
Easy
Frightening
Social
Holding
Happens
Commit
America
Scary
Anything
Murder

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Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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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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There is no love There are only the various envies, all of them sad.
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What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?
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No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.
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Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
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In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.
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There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
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Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or die so young, or live for years alone.
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And make us as Newton was, who in his garden watching The apple falling towards England, became aware Between himself and her of an eternal tie.
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Cathedrals, luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone.
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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
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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.
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