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"What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish."
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"Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding."

"You do not need a boyfriend or a girlfriend to write an emotional poet, because poetry is beyond hooks and holes."

"The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode."

"Music heals all forms of misery."

"The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels."

"The business of art lies just in this, -- to make that understood and felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible."
Explore more quotes by W. H. Auden


"Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods."


"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."


"May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that "faith" is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?"


"A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become."


"Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs."


"My second thoughts condemnAnd wonder how I dareTo look you in the eye.What right have I to swearEven at one a.m.To love you till I die?Earth meets too many crimesFor fibs to interest her;If I can give my word,Forgiveness can recurAny number of timesIn Time. Which is absurd.Tempus fugit. Quite.So finish up your drink.All flesh is grass. It is. But who on earth can thinkWith heavy heart or lightOf what will come of this?"
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