Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
Interpretation
This quote humorously describes someone whose appearance may not be pristine or ideal.
W. H. Auden uses a vivid and comical metaphor to convey feelings of dishevelment or disappointment in one's appearance. By comparing his face to a 'wedding-cake left out in the rain', he emphasizes the contrast between the expected beauty of a wedding cake and the unfortunate, messy reality that can occur when it is exposed to the elements.
In practice
This quote can be used in a light-hearted speech about self-acceptance.
Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes.
Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire; it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.
Although she was aware that somewhere under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn't mean to say she approved of it.
Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh is a humorist.
But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?
I've been on a calendar, but I've never been on time.
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.