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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.

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
Letter
Nature
Much
Particularly
Good
Letters
Time
Oneself
Sick
Friend
Written
Amuse
Art

More quotes by W. H. Auden

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Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.
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Adjectives are the potbelly of poetry.
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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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If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.
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Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm.
W. H. Auden
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Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.
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Organic growth is a cyclical process it is just as true to say that the oak is a potential acorn as it is to say the acorn is a potential oak. But the process of writing a poem, of making any art object, is not cyclical but a motion in one direction toward a definite end.
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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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Poetry makes nothing happen.
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Though one cannot always Remember exactly why one has been happy, There is no forgetting that one was.
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Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
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Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.
W. H. Auden
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
W. H. Auden
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I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.
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Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
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Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.
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I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them.
W. H. Auden
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Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
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One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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