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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

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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
Thinking
Imagination
Rare
Victories
Quite
Machine
Separated
Quality
Vain
Expense
Spiritual
Mental
Normally
Human
Machines
Expenses
Humans
Fruit
Odds
Much
Victory
Represent
Think
Beginning
Qualities
Alignment

More quotes by Philip Larkin

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The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.
Philip Larkin
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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.
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I think we got much better poetry when it was all regarded as sinful or subversive, and you had to hide it under the cushion when somebody came in.
Philip Larkin
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Clearly money has something to do with life.
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Most people know more as they get older: I give all that the cold shoulder.
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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
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Life has a practice of living you, if you don't live it.
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The breath that sharpens life is life itself.
Philip Larkin
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SEX is designed for people who like overcoming obstacles.
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Sexual intercourse began in 1963 ... / Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ and the Beatles first LP
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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.
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All the unhurried day / Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.
Philip Larkin
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And the case of butterflies so rich it looks As if all summer settled there and died.
Philip Larkin
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One of the great criticisms of poets of the past is that they said one thing and did another.
Philip Larkin
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I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Philip Larkin
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Still, vicious or virtuous, Love suits most of us.
Philip Larkin
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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
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The difficult part of love Is being selfish enough.
Philip Larkin
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I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.
Philip Larkin
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I have no enemies. But my friends don't like me.
Philip Larkin