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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.
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
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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
Desert
Glaciers
Bed
Knocks
Dead
Lane
Land
Lanes
Teacup
Crack
Glacier
Sigh
Cupboard
Opens
Cupboards
Cracks
Sighs
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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
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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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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
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All the literati keep An imaginary friend.
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To make one, there must be two.
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I see little hope for a peaceful world until men are excluded from the realm of foreign policy altogether and all decisions concerning international relations are reserved for women, preferably married ones.
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Water is the soul of the Earth.
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One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
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Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
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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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What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.
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All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.
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You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
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The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.
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Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation.
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Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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