It’s a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it. – W. H. Auden
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about. – W. H. Auden
In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one. – W. H. Auden
‘Healing,’ Papa would tell me, ‘is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.’ – W. H. Auden
A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can’t think of anything else to do. – W. H. Auden
You know there are no secrets in America. It’s quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people. – W. H. Auden
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition. – W. H. Auden
If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I’d pay for riding lessons and take his gun away. – W. H. Auden
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology. – W. H. Auden
It takes little talent to see what lies under one’s nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ. – W. H. Auden
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. – W. H. Auden
Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return. – W. H. Auden
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. – W. H. Auden
