W.H. Auden

A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.

Geniuses are the luckiest mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.

All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.

It takes little talent to see what is under one's nose, a good deal of it to know in what direction to point that organ.

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.

Earth, receive an honored guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.

A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.

To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.