W. H. Auden Quotes & Sayings (Page 7)

“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.”

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

“Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.”

“All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.”

“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.”

“Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.”

“I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.”

“Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.”

“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.”

“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.”