H. Auden
H. Auden
fairy-tale tales hunts
To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
pay-the-price people use
People always get what they want. But there is a price for everything. Failures are either those who do not know what they want or are not prepared to pay the price asked them. The price varies from individual to individual. Some get things at bargain-sale prices, others only at famine prices. But it is no use grumbling. Whatever price you are asked, you must pay.
writing answers goes-on
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.
sorry intelligent men
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
unique reality two
One demands two things of a poem. Firstly, it must be a well-made verbal object that does honor to the language in which it is written. Secondly, it must say something significant about a reality common to us all, but perceived from a unique perspective. What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.
fate thinking long
So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing; but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.
evil politics imagine
Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.
horse gun wicked
If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
sunny-afternoon shy sunny-day
We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
forgiveness party unique
Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.
earth needs mankind
Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.