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W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 14

All Quotes Acting Affection Age Art Character Children Choices Cooking Country Criticism Culture Dance Dancing Death Desire Drama Earth Ego Evil Fate Fear Feelings Food Funeral Funny Giving God Greek Grief Happiness Healing Heart Hell Helping Others History Homosexuality Honor Hope Hunger Imagination Inspirational Joy Judgment Language Life Listening Love Lying Mankind Money Mountain Mourning Music Nature Passion Past Pleasure Poetry Politics Prayer Quality Reality Religion Running Science Silence Sin Sleep Sorrow Soul Study Success Suffering Time Today Torture Waiting Water Winning Work Writing

The Americans are violently oral. That's why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all -- isn't respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an

The Americans are violently oral. That's why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all -- isn't respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth.

Mother, Father, Taken

God bless the USA, so large, so friendly, and so rich.

God, Usa, America

W. H. Auden, “On The Circuit”

I'm always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive--it's so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual.

Party, Practice, Homosexuality

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

Responsibility, Aristocracy, Poetic

"The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("American Poetry"), (p. 367), 1962.

Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel.

Writing, Night, People

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.

Trying, Essentials, Becoming

From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.

Taken, Hands, Plot

Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss

Nature, Moving, Moss

'The Fall of Rome' (1951)

The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

Stars, Heart, Men

Letter from Iceland (1937, by Auden and MacNeice) "Letter to William Coldstream, Esq."

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

Eye, Men, Looks

At first critics classified authors as Ancients, that is to say, Greek and Latin authors, and Moderns, that is to say, every post-Classical Author. Then they classified them by eras, the Augustans, the Victorians, etc., and now they classify them by decades, the writers of the '30's, '40's, etc. Very soon, it seems, they will be labeling authors, like automobiles, by the year.

Latin, Years, Greek

"The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Reading"), (p. 12), 1962.

To my generation no other English poet seemed so perfectly to express the sensibility of a male adolescent. If I do not now turn to him very often, I am eternally grateful to him for the joy he gave me in my youth.

Grateful, Joy, Males

1972 Of A E Housman.'A Worcestershire Lad', collected in Forewords and After words (1973).

There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.

Parades, Ends, Novel

Few can remember clearly when innocence came to a sudden end, the moment at which we ask for the first time: Am I loved?

Firsts, Innocence, Remember

W. H. Auden, Katherine Bucknell (2003). “Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928”, p.28, Princeton University Press

August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.

August, Islands, People

'Look, Stranger!' (1936) no. 30

The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.

Stars, Animal, Looks

'Spain' (1937) p. 12

Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.

Change, Heart, Shining

'Sir, No Man's Enemy' (1955)

Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.

Country, Novelists, Roles

"Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("A Poet of the Actual"), (p. 266), 1973.

Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral

Death, Children, Thoughtful

'Another Time' (1940) no. 18, p. 43

Does God judge us by appearances? I Suspect that He does.

Judging, Doe, Appearance

Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.

Mad, Acting, Actors

We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock

Work, Devil, Done

W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.83, DEBOLS!LLO

Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes i do not like my work On a pink official form.

Work, Writing, Clerks

W. H. Auden, “The Fall Of Rome”

With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse

Poetry, Vineyards, Farming

W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.150, DEBOLS!LLO

You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.

Poetry, Poet, Humiliated

Entry for April 11, 1979. "Stephen Spender, Journals 1939-1983". Book by Stephen Spender, 1985.

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