Quotes by W. H. Auden

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The purpose of the poem; to make people able to enjoy life a little more, or endure it a little easier.

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The book is a mirror: if a donkey fits in it, it cannot see the image of an apostle.

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Reading means translating, and that's because no two people have the same experience. A bad reader is like a bad translator; interpret literary when they should paraphrase and paraphrase when they should interpret literary.

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One of the sure signs of a book's literary value is that it can be read in a wide variety of ways.