Quotes by W. H. Auden

About W. H. Auden:

Wystan Hugh Auden is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with moral and political issues, and its variety in tone, form and content. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.

W. H. Auden

All that we are not stares back at what we are.

W. H. Auden

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

W. H. Auden

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.

W. H. Auden

My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.

W. H. Auden

A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.

W. H. Auden

It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.

W. H. Auden

You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.

W. H. Auden

Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.

W. H. Auden

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.

W. H. Auden

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.

W. H. Auden

Author Bio

  • NameW. H. Auden
  • DescriptionAnglo-American poet
  • BornFebruary 21, 1907
  • DiedSeptember 28, 1973
  • CountryUnited Kingdom; United States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Screenwriter; Literary Historian; Playwright; Writer; Librettist
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Austrian State Prize For European Literature; Bollingen Prize; Pulitzer Prize For Poetry; National Book Award; Queen's Gold Medal For Poetry