"As readers, we remain in the nursery stage……" — Wystan Hugh Auden
"As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like. For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don't like it."
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Wystan Hugh Auden
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314 Quotes by Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden has 314 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and…
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We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
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Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I…
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Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice…
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A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
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A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical…
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Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
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If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.
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All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.
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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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More Adult Quotes
This quote is filed under Adult Quotes,
one of 1,513 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.
— Margaret Atwood
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Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.
— Margaret Atwood
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I grew up in a family that was multifaceted, sexually oriented, and pretty much open to everything. And because I…
— Drew Barrymore
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I was raised on government cheese. As an adult, in my first marriage, my husband and I worked real hard…
— Roseanne Barr
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When you're young, you're always wondering when you're actually going to feel like a grownup. And I think you probably…
— Drew Barrymore
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If you want your kids to listen to you, don't yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids…
— Mario Batali
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There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the…
— Jean Baudrillard
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What is an adult? A child blown up by age.
— Simone de Beauvoir
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The average adult laughs 15 times a day; the average child, more than 400 times.
— Martha Beck
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Children who assume adult responsibilities feel old when they're young.
— Martha Beck
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Only since the Industrial Revolution have most people worked in places away from their homes or been left to raise…
— Martha Beck
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An Adult faith does not follow the waves of fashion and the latest novelties.
— Pope Benedict XVI
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