“Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.”
Other W. H. Auden Quotes
If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
W. H. Auden 
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"Healing," Papa would tell me, "is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature."
W. H. Auden
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Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.
W. H. Auden
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Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.
W. H. Auden
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