Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
“Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.” — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Most poetry is the utterance of a man in some state of passion, love, joy, grief, rage, etc., and no doubt this is as… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
If age, which is certainly Just as wicked as youth, look any wiser, It is only that youth is still able to believe It… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
