Philip Larkin Quotes - Page 4

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• I am beginning to think of the human imagination as a fruit machine on which victories are rare and separated by much vain expense, and represent a rare alignment of mental and spiritual qualities that normally are quite at odds.

  Philip Larkin

  Spiritual, Thinking, Odds

  4 Copy quote

• In everyone there sleeps. A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make. By loving others, but across most it sweeps. As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures.

  Philip Larkin

  Mean, Sleep, Loving Life

  Philip Larkin (2012). “The Whitsun Weddings”, p.12, Faber & Faber

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• I am not sure, once a poet has found out what has been written already, and how it was written - once, in short, he has learnt his trade - that he should bother with literature at all. Poetry is not like surgery, a technique that can be copied. Every operation the poet performs is unique, and need never be done again.

  Philip Larkin

  Unique, Technique, Needs

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• Give me a thrill, says the reader,
  Give me a kick;
  I don't care how you succeed, or
  What subject you pick.

  Philip Larkin

  Reading, Giving, Thrill

  Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.153, Faber & Faber

  9 Copy quote

• I'd like to think...that people in pubs would talk about my poems

  Philip Larkin

  Thinking, People, Pubs

  9 Copy quote

• Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.

  Philip Larkin

  Sex, Mean, Moments

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• I wouldn't mind seeing China if I could come back the same day.

  Philip Larkin

  Mind, China, If I Could

  Philip Larkin (1989). “Philip Larkin: the man and his work”, Univ of Iowa Pr

  4 Copy quote

• Courage is no good:
  It means not scaring others. Being brave
  Lets no one off the grave.
  Death is no different whined at than withstood.

  Philip Larkin

  Death, Courage, Mean

  Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.172, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• What are days for?
  Days are where we live.

  Philip Larkin

  'Days' (1964)

  4 Copy quote

• Uncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

  Philip Larkin

  Simple, Sea, Support

  7 Copy quote

• And immediately Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

  Philip Larkin

  Glasses, Air, Blue

  High Windows (1974) "High Windows"

  4 Copy quote

• Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, Have always known, know that we can't escape, Yet can't accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

  Philip Larkin

  Doctors, Light, Sky

  Philip Larkin, “Aubade”

  9 Copy quote

• All the unhurried day / Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.

  Philip Larkin

  Knives, Mind, Drawers

  Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.58, Faber & Faber

  7 Copy quote

• Heads in the Women's Ward On pillow after pillow lies The wild white hair and staring eyes; Jaws stand open; necks are stretched With every tendon sharply sketched; A bearded mouth talks silently To someone no one else can see. Sixty years ago they smiled At lover, husband, first-born child. Smiles are for youth. For old age come Death's terror and delirium.

  Philip Larkin

  Children, Husband, Lying

  6 Copy quote

• One of the great criticisms of poets of the past is that they said one thing and did another.

  Philip Larkin

  Past, Poetry, Criticism

  4 Copy quote

• The breath that sharpens life is life itself.

  Philip Larkin

  Life Is, Breaths

  6 Copy quote

• A writer can have only one language, if language is going to mean anything to him.

  Philip Larkin

  Mean, Language, Ifs

  Philip Larkin (2012). “Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982”, p.63, Faber & Faber

  5 Copy quote

• Clearly money has something to do with life.

  Philip Larkin

  Money

  Philip Larkin (2012). “Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis”, p.88, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• Most people know more as they get older:
  I give all that the cold shoulder.

  Philip Larkin

  Wisdom, People, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous,
  Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water,
  Is earth's most multiple, excited daughter;
  And those she has least use for see her best,
  Their paths grown craven and circuitous,
  Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.

  Philip Larkin

  Daughter, Spring, Flower

  Philip Larkin (2012). “The Less Deceived”, p.29, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• Still, vicious or virtuous,
  Love suits most of us.

  Philip Larkin

  Love, Suits, Vicious

  Philip Larkin (2012). “Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis”, p.91, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• Life and literature is a question of what one thrills to, and further than that no man shall ever go without putting his foot in a turd.

  Philip Larkin

  Men, Feet, Literature

  Letter to J.B.Sutton, December 21, 1942.

  4 Copy quote

• Life is first boredom, then fear.
  Whether or not we use it, it goes,
  And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
  And age, and then the only end of age.

  Philip Larkin

  Fear, Boredom, Age

  'Dockery & Son' (1964)

  4 Copy quote

• They say eyes clear with age.

  Philip Larkin

  Eye, Age, Clear

  Philip Larkin, “Long Sight In Age”

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• The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously.

  Philip Larkin

  Drinking, Giving, Musical

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