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I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.

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
Art
Think
Thinking
Preserve
Preserves
Impulse
Bottom
Lies
Lying

More quotes by Philip Larkin

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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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One of the quainter quirks of life is that we shall never know who dies on the dame day as we do ourselves.
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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.
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Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.
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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.
Philip Larkin
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... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.
Philip Larkin
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Clearly money has something to do with life.
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The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.
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Saki says that youth is like hors d'oeuvres: you are so busy thinking of the next courses you don't notice it. When you've had them, you wish you'd had more hors d'oeuvres.
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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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Life is first boredom, then fear.
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Parting is a training streamer,Lingering like leaves in autumn.
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He married a woman to stop her getting away Now she's there all day.
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Things are tougher than we are, just As earth will always respond However we mess it about.
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It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind.
Philip Larkin
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All the unhurried day / Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.
Philip Larkin
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Joy Is for the simple or the great to feel, Neither of which we are.
Philip Larkin
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The breath that sharpens life is life itself.
Philip Larkin
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There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn't true!
Philip Larkin