Books Quotes by W. H. Auden

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

— W. H. Auden

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

— W. H. Auden

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

— W. H. Auden

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

— W. H. Auden

What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.

— W. H. Auden

Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at…

— W. H. Auden

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their…

— W. H. Auden

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they…

— W. H. Auden

“Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.”

— W. H. Auden

One demands two things of a poem. Firstly, it must be a well-made verbal object that does honor to the language in…

— W. H. Auden

There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get…

— W. H. Auden

At first critics classified authors as Ancients, that is to say, Greek and Latin authors, and Moderns, that is to say, every…

— W. H. Auden

It has been said that a poem should not mean but be. This is not quite accurate. In a poem, as distinct…

— W. H. Auden