W. H. Auden Quotes

Now my only income is a few royalty cheques from my books.

A lot of the times, I end up having to do jobs to sort of pay the bills.

Being rich would be disastrous for me as a writer. I have always needed to write to pay the bills.

It's nice to have awards from time to time. There was a time when I had to make a living from my writing, and it wasn't always easy. I value awards a lot - and more so if there is a little cash with them!

I'm proud that I've never stopped writing about being poor.

Don't be a writer. Writing is an escape from something. You be a scientist.

The problems you have as a novelist tend to have to do with making a living and trying to find ways to supplement the income you get from writing novels. For a lot of writers, that involves teaching. In my case, so far, I've been able to get by working in Hollywood with this TV stuff I've been doing. And it's very important, because my wife is a writer, too, and we don't have health insurance through any employer.

You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.

Writing is not "the establishment of a professional reputation" as if one were a doctor or lawyer; it is not properly in the sentence with creation of a family and the purchase of a home.

My husband has no desire to work with me. He gets paid a lot of money to write giant movies. He's not into humoring me with my projects.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

I think as you grow up and you see things which are around you and you ask questions and you hear the answers, your situation becomes more and more of a puzzle. Now, why is it like this, why are things like this and since writing is one way in which one can ask this questions and try to find these answers, it seems to me a very natural thing to do, especially as it meant stories which I always found moving, almost unbearably necessary.

I think poetry is the best thing I do. It's certainly the purest. I seem to switch gears without too much trouble. Non-fiction is in many ways the easiest to write.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

Hey there.' I cleared my throat. 'How are you?' I'm engaged!' Incidentally, this is an unacceptable answer to that question.

Once I started writing all the time and interacting with poets, I made a conscious decision to identify myself as a poet. It's funny how much a single word can provide focus and direction. As soon as I claimed that identity, I started clearing more and more space for poetry in my life and applying poetic tools to other areas of my life. The world became a different place, and I witnessed it through different kinds of eyes.

As soon as I start to write I'm very aware, I'm trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I'm writing - and I think that this is important for all writers - I'm trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth. I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I'll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.

People are born with the knack to write poems and songs. I'm not a poet at all.

The working poor are the people suffering out subprime mortgages and fatal loans and more and more of our money - you know, capitalism is operated by extracting money, not so much directly being paid.

Before you can write a check, you must first make out a deposit slip; before you can draw money out of a bank, you must put money into a bank; before you are entitled to a living, you must give the world a life; if you want to make a first-class living, learn to give the world a first-class life.

It's not really about confidence. It's just something that isn't really in the vocabulary of what goes on at work. The writers write and the actors act.

The greatest problem America faces is the decline of middle class incomes.

No parent at home is saying my gosh, if we can just get a higher minimum wage, all of our aspirations have been realized.

Beginning with a critique of my own limbs, which she said, justly enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum.

Thoughts fly and words go on foot. Therein lies all the drama of a writer.