When I look back at the three or four choices in my life which have been decisive, I find that, at the time I made them, I had very little sense of the seriousness of what I was doing and only later did I discover what had seemed an unimportant brook was, in fact, a […]
Wystan Hugh Auden Quotes
Hunger allows no choice, To the citizens or the police; We must love one another or die.
If thou must choose between the chances, choose the odd; Read the New Yorker; trust in God; And take short views.
Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject for study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction.
A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
Choice of attention – to pay attention to this and ignore that – is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
Anthropos apteros for days Walked whistling round and round the maze, Relying happily upon His temperament for getting on. The hundredth time he sighted, though, A bush he left an hour ago, He halted where four alleys crossed And recognised that he was lost. ‘Where am I? Metaphysics says No question can be asked unless […]
Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser or more intelligent than his readers. For this reason the aphorist who adopts a folksy style with “democratic” diction and grammar is a cowardly and insufferable […]
America is a terrifying place and I daresay I’m no tougher than the rest, but to attempt the more difficult seems to me the only thing worth while. At least I know what I am trying to do, which most American writers don’t, which is to live deliberately without roots. I would put it like […]
