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.

Quote by W H Auden

Topics: Art Quotes

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.

Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.

Healing, Papa would tell me, is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing...

Healing, Papa would tell me, is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing...

The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money,...

The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money,...

A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.

A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.

All that we are not stares back at what we are.

All that we are not stares back at what we are.

You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people...

You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people...

Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is...

Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is...

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called...

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called...

One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.

One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.

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

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

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

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

Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.

Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.

Men make the mistake of thinking that because women can't see the sense in violence,...

Men make the mistake of thinking that because women can't see the sense in violence,...

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them....

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them....

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so...

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so...

The fate of all extremes is such: men may be read, as well as books,...

The fate of all extremes is such: men may be read, as well as books,...

Men do not understand books until they have a certain amount of life, or at...

Men do not understand books until they have a certain amount of life, or at...