Quote

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.

W. H. Auden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Men
Makers
Life
Private
Concern
Anybody
Writer
Friends
Family
Action
Maker

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
W. H. Auden
Image
The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.
W. H. Auden
Image
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
Image
Of course,Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture.
W. H. Auden
Image
We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.
W. H. Auden
Image
Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
W. H. Auden
Image
Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style.
W. H. Auden
Image
A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.
W. H. Auden
Image
A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
W. H. Auden
Image
We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
W. H. Auden
Image
Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another...
W. H. Auden
Image
You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
W. H. Auden
Image
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.
W. H. Auden
Image
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
W. H. Auden
Image
God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good.
W. H. Auden
Image
To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.
W. H. Auden
Image
The camera may do justice to laughter, but must degrade sorrow.
W. H. Auden
Image
For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
W. H. Auden
Image
In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
W. H. Auden
Image
A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.
W. H. Auden