“All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.”
Art
“Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.”
DeathAll Quotes by W. H. Auden
“Learn from your dreams what you lack.”
Dreams“Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.”
Life“I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.”
Love“Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.”
Death“Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.”
Health“Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.”
Marriage“May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?”
Faith“Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.”
Forgiveness“What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.”
Art“Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.”
Art“When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.”
Science“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.”
Love“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
Love“Art is born of humiliation.”
Art“Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.”
Music“The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.”
Death“It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.”
Art“'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'”
Art“It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.”
Art