Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.
W. H. AudenAs a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.
W. H. AudenThe countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
W. H. AudenThe basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.
W. H. AudenAs readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like. For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don't like it.
W. H. Auden