W. H. Auden

The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.

Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

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

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.

'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.

Learn from your dreams what you lack.

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 practising it.

When we do evil We and our victims Are equally bewildered.

About suffering they were never wrong The Old Masters How well they understood Its human position how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.

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.

Nobody can honestly think of himself as a strong character because however successful he may be in overcoming them he is necessarily aware of the doubts and temptations that accompany every important choice.

The ear tends to be lazy craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye on the other hand tends to be impatient craves the novel and is bored by repetition.

Any marriage happy or unhappy is infinitely more interesting and significant than any romance however passionate.

My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry no longer' 'I'm sorry not yet.'

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.

Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation a mental or physical barter to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.