Quote

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

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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.
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The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles.
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Hunger allows no choice.
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The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as a historian and when to think as an anthropologist.
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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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I used to try and concentrate the poem so much that there wasn't a word that wasn't essential. This leads to becoming boring and constipated.
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What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.
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A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.
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Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
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A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.
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To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
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With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse
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Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
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Now is the age of anxiety.
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Like love we don't know where or why Like love we cant compel or fly Like Love we often weep Like Love we seldom keep
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Criticism should be a casual conversation.
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I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade
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Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.
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Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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