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Swans in the winter air A white perfection have

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
Perfection
Air
White
Swans
Winter

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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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See without looking, hear without listening, breathe without asking.
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There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.
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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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Criticism should be a casual conversation.
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Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.
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If it form the one landscape that we the inconstant ones Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly Because it dissolves in water.
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The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.
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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
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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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My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
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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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A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters How well they understood Its human position how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.
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Aside from purely technical analysis, nothing can be said about music, except when it is bad when it is good, one can only listen and be grateful.
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Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.
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Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
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We must love one another or die
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Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.
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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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