About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters. - W. H. Auden

حين كان يضحك
كان أعضاء مجلس الشيوخ الموقرون ينفجرون بالضحك
وحين كان يبكي
كان الأطفال يموتون في الشوارع

A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?” The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.