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Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

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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Poetry

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The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.
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Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.
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A shilling life will give you all the facts.
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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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Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
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All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.
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The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
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Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.
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My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry, no longer' 'I'm sorry, not yet.
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I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.
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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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Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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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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Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
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We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.
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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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Let me see what I wrote so I know what I think
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There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.
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