Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
W. H. Auden

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.
W. H. Auden

The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.
W. H. Auden

The 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. Auden

The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
W. H. Auden

The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.
W. H. Auden

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
W. H. Auden

To save your world you asked this man to die; would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
W. H. Auden

We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
W. H. Auden

We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
W. H. Auden

We are here on Earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know.
W. H. Auden

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.
W. H. Auden

When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
W. H. Auden

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.
W. H. Auden

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.
W. H. Auden

You owe it to us all to get on with what you're good at.
W. H. Auden