“There is no such thing as muddle — obscurity, yes — but muddle can exist only in a disorderly brain.”

— Agatha Christie, book Death in the Clouds

Death in the Clouds (1935)

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Agatha Christie320

English mystery and detective writer 1890–1976

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“There are some good things and some fantastic ones in Auden’s early attitude; if the reader calls it a muddle I shall acquiesce, with the remark that the later position might be considered a more rarefied muddle. But poets rather specialize in muddles—and I have no doubt which of the muddles was better for Auden’s poetry: one was fertile and usable, the other decidedly is not. Auden sometimes seems to be saying with Henry Clay, “I had rather be right than poetry”; but I am not sure, then, that he is either.”

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“There is no such thing as muddle — obscurity, yes — but muddle can exist only in a disorderly brain.”

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