Quote

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites, The costly aversion of the eyes from death- Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.

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
Despite
Costly
Eyes
Aversion
Artful
Eye
Oblivion
Rites
Desire
Insurance
Tensions
Death
Beneath
Calendar
Running
Runs
Fertility
Life
Tension
Calendars
Solitude
Rite

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Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.
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To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted.
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Still, vicious or virtuous, Love suits most of us.
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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.
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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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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.
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Living in England has no such excuse: These are my customs and establishments.
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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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It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind.
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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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Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends And past the poppies bluish neutral distance Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.
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Parting is a training streamer,Lingering like leaves in autumn.
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And the case of butterflies so rich it looks As if all summer settled there and died.
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I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.
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