W. H. Auden Quotes

Why has elegance found so little following? That is the reality of it. Elegance has the disadvantage, if that's what it is, that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it.

Country's cool if you like that kind of thing, but it doesn't have the complexity or - what's the word? - subtlety.

Men of great talents, whether poets or historians, seldom escape the attacks of those who, without ever favoring the world with any production of their own, take delight in criticising the works of others.

There's just so much out there and so much inspiration... I just want to be tasteful.

How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.

Only talent interests me in paintings and books. Not general ideas, but the individual contribution.

I write in different styles because I hear different voices in my head. It would be boring to have always the same voice, point of view.

As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set; Their want of edge from their offence is seen, Both pain us least when exquisitely keen.

Ill writers are usually the sharpest censors.

I'm often a little perplexed, when I read a review of a book, by the quotes that are pulled out as evidence of excellent prose. I don't think great novels are necessarily composed of great prose, or that there's a correlation between beautiful prose and the quality of a work of fiction. A really good, interesting novel will often let a little ugliness get into its words - to create a certain effect, to leave the reader with a certain sense of disorientation.

Beasts feed. Man eats. Only the man of intellect knows how to eat.

Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.

Creativity is the art of the impossible

As a poet or a novelist or a painter, you are pushing yourself all the time, always looking for a new way to approach something, challenging yourself and never, never trying to write the same book twice.

If a man writes a brilliant enough play in praise of something that is universally loathed, the play, if it is good and well enough written, should not be knocked down because of its approach to its subject.

A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative.

People think, "Oh my god, you've been doing this job for so many years, it must get boring." It's like, "No, hell no," because I get to sing, I get to dance, I get to be on TV and in films, I get to do merchandising, licensing, show up at conventions, write, or take photographs for my book. There are so many different things going on for me that it never gets boring. It's always fun and interesting.

Beautiful books are always written in a sort of foreign language.

Books, we are told, propose to instruct or to amuse. Indeed! A true antithesis to knowledge, in this case, is not pleasure, but power. All that is literature seeks to communicate power; all that is not literature, to communicate knowledge.

Too great refinement is false delicacy, and true delicacy is solid refinement.

If you write beautifully, you write beautifully, that's all.

The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.

We were clever enough to turn a laundry list into poetry.

Wit is like caviar - it should be served in small portions and not spread about like marmalade.