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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.

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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Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Concern
Anybody
Writer
Friends
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Action
Maker
Men
Makers
Life
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More quotes by W. H. Auden

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Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know.
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Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.
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Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.
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There is no love There are only the various envies, all of them sad.
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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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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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We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
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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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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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A poor American feels guilty at being poor, but less guilty than an American rentier who has inherited wealth but is doing nothingto increase it what can the latter do but take to drink and psychoanalysis?
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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.
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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
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We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
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Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
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What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
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The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.
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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.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.
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The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
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