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W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden Quotes

Poet

W. H. Auden was a prominent 20th-century poet, celebrated for his innovative and influential poetry. His works frequently delve into themes of love, politics, and the human experience, and he is a pivotal figure in the literary movement known as New Criticism. Born on February 21, 1907, in York, England, Auden passed away on September 29, 1973.

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Famous W. H. Auden Quotes

“Organic growth is a cyclical process; it is just as true to say that the oak is a potential acorn as it is to say the acorn is a potential oak. But the process of writing a poem, of making any art object, is not cyclical but a motion in one direction toward a definite end.”

Writing Art Ends Process Growth Objects Definite Oaks One Direction Acorns

Author:W. H. Auden

“The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read and write, while very few men are taught to draw or paint or write music.”

Men Writing Facts Speak Taught Elements Draws Paint Poetry Is Craftsmanship

Author:W. H. Auden

“It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, "What should I write at the age of sixty-four," but never, "What should I write in 1940."”

Should Writing Important Might Age Asks Four Sixty Should I

Author:W. H. Auden

“The poet who writes "free" verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.”

“A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.”

Writing Use Political Mother Force Loses Example Poet Duty Tongue Mother Tongue Physical Force

Author:W. H. Auden

“Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes i do not like my work On a pink official form.”

Writing Form Work Bed Warm Officials Unimportant Dissatisfaction Clerks

Author:W. H. Auden

“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.”

Writing Art Facts Poetry Culture Money Talking Poet Making Money More Money Makin Money

Author: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.”

Men Writing Poet Release Bombs Dragons Pushing Poetic Buttons Slaying

Author:W. H. Auden

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

Writing Proud Fame Vain

Author:W. H. Auden

“In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.”

Writing Believe May Reader Standards Relation Double Standard Unfaithful

Author: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.”

Life Writing Believe Has Beens Belief Wish Numbers Alive Poet Granted Novelists

Author:W. H. Auden

“Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel.”

People Writing Stories Night Novel Late Relation Technique Bars Short Story

Author:W. H. Auden

“The ideal audience the poet imagines consists of the beautiful who go to bed with him, the powerful who invite him to dinner and tell him secrets of state, and his fellow-poets. The actual audience he gets consists of myopic schoolteachers, pimply young men who eat in cafeterias, and his fellow-poets. This means, in fact, he writes for his fellow-poets.”

Men Writing Mean States Facts Beautiful Young Powerful Secret Audience Imagine Poet Bed Ideals Fellows Dinner Young Man Invites Cafeteria Myopic

Author:W. H. Auden

“How happy is the lot of the mathematician! He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve. No cashier writes a letter to the press complaining about the incomprehensibility of Modern Mathematics and comparing it unfavorably with the good old days when mathematicians were content to paper irregularly shaped rooms and fill bathtubs without closing the waste pipe.”

“Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.”

Ifs Writing I Can Book Character Interest Waste Wit Reviews Wasting Time Display Attacking Malice Showing Off

Author:W. H. Auden

“A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?” The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.”

People Knows Want Giving Feels Should Writing Has Beens I Can Book Passion Courses Answers Existence Millions Written Poet Reader Lovers Silly Jealous Daydreaming

Author:W. H. Auden

“In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.”

Ifs Men Writing Stills Moments Eye Lasts Forever Written Poet Revision

Author:W. H. Auden

“But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer "writer" for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer "poetry" would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry.”

Ifs Knows Writing May Asks Answers Goes On Train Stranger Ask Me Occupation Writing Poetry

Author:W. H. Auden

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

Writing Mother Language Felt

Author:W. H. Auden

“A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.”

Writing Believe Poetry Sound Poet Exciting Statements Being True Lovesickness

Author:W. H. Auden

“Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.”

Writing Humans Suffering Interest Interesting Conditions Weakness Human Condition Typical

Author:W. H. Auden

“I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'”

Ifs Writing Trying You Like It

Author:W. H. Auden

“Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.”

Writing Doe Reader Intelligent Conviction Arguing Genre Aphorism Wiser Quotations Assertion Implicit Aristocratic

Author:W. H. Auden

“The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot.”

Writing Courses Chance Poet Majors Lifetime Quantity Minors Chances Are

Author:W. H. Auden

About the Author

Born: February 21, 1907
Died: September 29, 1973
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 436

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