A Quote by W. H. Auden

Drama is based on the Mistake. — © W. H. Auden
Drama is based on the Mistake.
Drama is based on the Mistake. I think someone is my friend when he really is my enemy, that I am free to marry a woman when in fact she is my mother, that this person is a chambermaid when it is a young nobleman in disguise, that this well-dressed young man is rich when he is really a penniless adventurer, or that if I do this such and such a result will follow when in fact it results in something very different. All good drama has two movements, first the making of the mistake, then the discovery that it was a mistake.
I think a lot of drama, nowadays, is character-based and development-based, but 'True Blood' is very plot-oriented.
Drama is hate. Drama is pushing your pain onto others. Drama is destruction. Some take pleasure in creating drama while others make excuses to stay stuck in drama. I choose not to step into a web of drama that I can't get out of.
I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.
It is not a mistake to commit a mistake, for no one commits a mistake knowing it to be one. But it is a mistake not to correct the mistake after knowing it to be one. If you are afraid of committing a mistake, you are afraid of doing anything at all. You will correct your mistakes whenever you find them.
You're playing a character in a drama who happens to be based on someone who existed. It's never going to 'be' that person, but it's based on someone well-known, and you want to create enough of that person for it not to be a distraction.
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.
Make no mistake: Homosexuals' human right must be protected. It is bigoted to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation or preferences just as it is to discriminate based on race or religion. Nonetheless there is no justification to promote this lifestyle and pretend that it is normal.
And learn that when you do make a mistake, you'll surface that mistake so you can get it corrected, rather than trying to hide it and bury it, and it becomes a much bigger mistake, and maybe a fatal mistake.
The whole music business in the United States is based on numbers, based on unit sales and not on quality. It's not based on beauty, it's based on hype and it's based on cocaine. It's based on giving presents of large packages of dollars to play records on the air.
For me, all drama is based on conflict.
I think when someone who's known for doing drama does a comedy but just tries to be funny, that's a mistake.
When I was at youth theatre and drama school, I never thought people would mistake me for a stand-up.
If you only do issue-based drama, you can become a boring wanker.
They made a mistake. And it was an easy mistake to make. I don't regard setting incentives aggressively as a mistake. I think the mistake was, when the bad news came, they didn't recognize it directly. I don't think that impairs the future of Wells Fargo. They'll be better for it.
People think comedians don't do drama. Comics are drama. And what is drama, as opposed to comedy? It's all the same to me.
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