Quote

I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.

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
Never
Think
Poems
Thinking
Separate
Individuals
Scene
Poetry
Written
Individual

More quotes by Philip Larkin

Image
There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn't true!
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
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
SEX is designed for people who like overcoming obstacles.
Philip Larkin
Image
I am awakened each dawn Increasingly to fear.
Philip Larkin
Image
All the unhurried day / Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.
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
Joy Is for the simple or the great to feel, Neither of which we are.
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
The breath that sharpens life is life itself.
Philip Larkin
Image
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.
Philip Larkin
Image
The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said.
Philip Larkin
Image
Most people know more as they get older: I give all that the cold shoulder.
Philip Larkin
Image
Still, vicious or virtuous, Love suits most of us.
Philip Larkin
Image
Poetry should begin with emotion in the poet, and end with the same emotion in the reader. The poem is simply the instrument of transferance.
Philip Larkin
Image
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.
Philip Larkin
Image
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Philip Larkin
Image
On me your voice falls as they say love should, Like an enormous yes.
Philip Larkin
Image
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?
Philip Larkin
Image
You can look out of your life like a train & see what you're heading for, but you can't stop the train.
Philip Larkin