“I don’t think I’m over-anxious about the future, though I do quail a bit sometimes before the probability that it will be lonely. When I see you surrounded by family and its problems, I alternate between self-congratulation and bitter envy.”

— W. H. Auden, letter to Ursula Niebuhr, August 1947, quoted in Auden and Christianity by Arthur Kirsch (via unutterablyalone)