Quote

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

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
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Come
Piano
Drum
Mourners
Bones
Telephone
Muffled
Grief
Telephones
Pianos
Dog
Bone
Barking
Cutting
Grieving
Clocks
Silence
Funeral
Coffin
Bring
Prevent
Juicy
Stop
Clock
Coffins

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The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
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Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.
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How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.
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We are all here on earth to help others.
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One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.
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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.
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No being can make another one happy.
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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
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A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.
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Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
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Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know.
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
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The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
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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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Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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