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Only one ship is seeking us, a black-Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her backA huge and birdless silence. In her wakeNo waters breed or break.

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
Seeking
Silence
Huge
Sailed
Break
Breed
Water
Unfamiliar
Black
Waters
Ship
Ships

More quotes by Philip Larkin

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Sexual intercourse began in 1963 ... / Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ and the Beatles first LP
Philip Larkin
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In everyone there sleeps. A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make. By loving others, but across most it sweeps. As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures.
Philip Larkin
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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.
Philip Larkin
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To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted.
Philip Larkin
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The breath that sharpens life is life itself.
Philip Larkin
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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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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
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But, o, photography! as no art is,Faithful and disappointing! That recordsDull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds,And will not censor blemishes,Like washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards
Philip Larkin
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SEX is designed for people who like overcoming obstacles.
Philip Larkin
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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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I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Philip Larkin
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Living in England has no such excuse: These are my customs and establishments.
Philip Larkin
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Life is first boredom, then fear. Whether or not we use it, it goes, And leaves what something hidden from us chose, And age, and then the only end of age.
Philip Larkin
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Life is first boredom, then fear.
Philip Larkin
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I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.
Philip Larkin
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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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Everyone should be forcibly transplanted to another continent from their family at the age of three.
Philip Larkin
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I don't think I write well - just better than anyone else.
Philip Larkin
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Get stewed:Books are a load of crap.
Philip Larkin
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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.
Philip Larkin