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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
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Much
Particularly
Good
Letters
Time
Oneself
Sick
Friend
Written
Art
Amuse
Nature
Letter

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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.
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A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
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In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.
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Of course,Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture.
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Blessed be all metrical rules that forbid automatic responses, force us to have second thoughts, free us from the fetters of Self.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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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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Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
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One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.
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The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one
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Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
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It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.
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Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.
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Drama is based on the Mistake.
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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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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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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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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
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