W.H. Auden

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

Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.

All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work "comes" to him.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

. . . see without looking, . . . hear without seeing, . . . breathe without asking.

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

I cannot accept the doctrine that in poetry there is a "suspension of belief." A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.

In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.

Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.