Quote

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

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
Drinking
Musical
Chromatic
Effects
Enema
Use
Martini
Give
Simultaneously
Giving
Scale
Scales
Effect

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I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
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Living in England has no such excuse: These are my customs and establishments.
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To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted.
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What are days for? Days are where we live.
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... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.
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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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As a child, I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realized it was just children I didn't like.
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Many famous feet have trod Sublunary paths, and famous hands have weighed The strength they have against the strength they need And famous lips interrogated God Concerning franchise in eternity.
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Joy Is for the simple or the great to feel, Neither of which we are.
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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.
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I have wished you something None of the others would.
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There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn't true!
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Uncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
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The poetic impulse is distinct from ideas about things or feelings about things, though it may use these. It's more like a desire to separate a piece of one's experience & set it up on its own, an isolated object never to trouble you again, at least not for a bit. In the absence of this impulse nothing stirs.
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One of the sadder things, I think, Is how our birthdays slowly sink: Presents and parties disappear, The cards grow fewer year by year, Till, when one reaches sixty-five, How many care we're still alive?
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You can look out of your life like a train & see what you're heading for, but you can't stop the train.
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One of the great criticisms of poets of the past is that they said one thing and did another.
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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.
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The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.
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