A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.
W. H. AudenThe parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.
W. H. AudenI don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
W. H. AudenAlone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father.
W. H. AudenIn a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.
W. H. Auden