Quote #87

I never write when I'm drunk. Why should one need aids? The Muse is a high-spirited girl who doesn't like to be brutally or coarsely wooed. And she doesn't like slavish devotion - then she lies.

More from Wystan Hugh Auden

  1. A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which …
  2. I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
  3. It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, 'What should I write at the ag…
  4. We are all on earth to help others. What on earth the others are here for, I can't imagine.
  5. Normally, when one passes someone on the street who is in pain, one either tries to help him, or one simply looks the other way. With a pho…
  6. Minus times minus equals plus, The reason for this we need not discuss.
  7. The curious delusion that some families are older than others.
  8. One can only blaspheme if one believes.

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