11 quotes
You have to see the sex act comically, as a child.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
Criticism should be a casual conversation.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
It's impossible to represent a saint. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, in the position of having almost infinitely free will.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties. But here, fidelity is the only bond.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, "Did you get an erection?" If the answer is "Yes" from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
What people don't realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social intercourse. There are three cardinal rules — don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)