Quote

Novels seem to me to be richer, broader, deeper, more enjoyable than poems.

Philip Larkin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Philip Larkin
Age: 63 †
Born: 1922
Born: August 9
Died: 1985
Died: December 2
Critic
Journalist
Librarian
Music Critic
Music Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Coventry
England
UK
Philip Arthur Larkin
Seem
Novel
Seems
Broader
Writing
Richer
Enjoyable
Poems
Novels
Deeper

More quotes by Philip Larkin

Image
Still, vicious or virtuous, Love suits most of us.
Philip Larkin
Image
This is the first thing I have understood: Time is the echo of an axe within a wood.
Philip Larkin
Image
I think a young poet, or an old poet, for that matter, should try to produce something that pleases himself personally, not only when he's written it but a couple of weeks later. Then he should see if it pleases anyone else, by sending it to the kind of magazine he likes reading.
Philip Larkin
Image
... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.
Philip Larkin
Image
Most people know more as they get older: I give all that the cold shoulder.
Philip Larkin
Image
The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously.
Philip Larkin
Image
I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by children if you're not.
Philip Larkin
Image
Any memory for the most part depending on chance.
Philip Larkin
Image
When I get sent manuscripts from aspiring poets, I do one of two things: if there is no stamped self-addressed envelope, I throw it into the bin.-If there is, I write and tell them to f**k off.
Philip Larkin
Image
The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.
Philip Larkin
Image
We should be careful / Of each other, we should be kind / While there is still time.
Philip Larkin
Image
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
Image
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Philip Larkin
Image
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
Image
It is fatal to decide, intellectually, what good poetry is because you are then in honour bound to try to write it, instead of the poems that only you can write.
Philip Larkin
Image
Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off? Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison-- Just for paying a few bills! That's out of proportion.
Philip Larkin
Image
What are days for? Days are where we live.
Philip Larkin
Image
As a child, I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realized it was just children I didn't like.
Philip Larkin
Image
I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.
Philip Larkin
Image
A writer once said to me, If you ever go to America, go either to the East Coast or the West Coast: The rest is a desert full of bigots. That's what I think I'd like . . . a version of pastoral.
Philip Larkin