Most people call something profound, not because it is near some important truth but because it is distant from ordinary life. Thus, darkness is profound to the eye, silence to the ear; what-is-not is the profundity of what-is.
W. H. AudenAmerica has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an รฉlite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.
W. H. AudenA writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: โWhom do you write for?โ 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 donโt want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each otherโs existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.
W. H. Auden