451 Quotes by W.H. Auden

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

Say this city has ten million souls,Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

Defenceless under the nightOur world in stupor lies;Yet, dotted everywhere,Ironic points of lightFlash out wherever the JustExchange their messages:May I, composed like themOf Eros and of dust,Beleaguered by the sameNegation and despair,Show an affirming flame.

Base words are uttered only by the baseAnd can for such at once be understood;But noble platitudes — ah, there's a caseWhere the most careful scrutiny is neededTo tell a voice that's genuinely goodFrom one that's base but merely has succeeded.

no poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it.

When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.from an essay for Writers by Nancy Crampton

I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.

Some thirty inches from my noseThe frontier of my Person goes,And all the untilled air betweenIs private pagus or demesne.Stranger, unless with bedroom eyesI beckon you to fraternize,Beware of rudely crossing it:I have no gun, but I can spit.

Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.