451 Quotes by W.H. Auden

Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance till you drop.

Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that ent hralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.

The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.

Voltaire has suffered the greatest misfortune that can befall a writer; he has become a legend, which ensures that he will not be read until someone destroys the legend.

Between friends, differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.

Time that is intolerant / Of the brave and the innocent, / And indifferent in a week / To a beautiful physique.

A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair, / Look in the Atlas and you'll find it here: / We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In general, when reading a scholarly critic, one profits more from his quotations than from his comments.