W.H. Auden: When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
Chuck D.: You're just going to see more madness.
Auden: It's a form of voyeurism.
Chuck D.: Yeah, we was making money.
Auden: No. Nothing is calculable.
Chuck D.: Boom, boom, boom.
Auden: Once I had a craze for turnips.
Chuck D.: I think a beat is better.
Auden: Oh, enormously.
Chuck D.: True or false?
Auden: Spiders and octopi.
Chuck D.: Can't be afraid of them.
Auden: I'm a bit puzzled by it.
Chuck D.: It's over with. It's gone.
Auden: Unfortunately, that's too often the case.
Chuck D.: I could be right, I could be wrong. Those are the basics.
Auden: Again, this idea of choosing. I couldn't do that, I'm far too worldly.
Chuck D.: But you know, basically, it's the same story interrelated.
Auden: I could decide between two ways of draining a mine, but I wasn’t allowed to use magical means.
Chuck D.: Somebody does, anyway. I'll sit on Greyhound for hours just listening to my music, look out the window and write, you know. Yo, I just drove—went down to Disneyworld. I could drive like—see, there's always a job in the business. Let's say they say, Chuck, you out of the business, man, I'll be a bus driver. I know the fucking roads, man.
Auden: The notes in music do not denote anything. The wildest poem has to have a firm basis in common sense, and this, I think, is the advantage of formal verse.
Chuck D.: So I just threw all that shit out the window.