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

Quote by W H Auden

Topics: W. H. Auden Quotes

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river...

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river...

It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too...

It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too...

Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the...

Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the...

The word 'Intellectual' suggests straight away - A man who's untrue to his wife

The word 'Intellectual' suggests straight away - A man who's untrue to his wife

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out...

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out...

The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a...

The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a...

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

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

What people don't realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social...

What people don't realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social...

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be...

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be...

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....

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...

When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who...

When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who...

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has...

Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has...

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out...

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out...

God bless the USA, so large, so friendly, and so rich.

God bless the USA, so large, so friendly, and so rich.

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

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

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

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

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.