Quote

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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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
Aging
Firsts
Leaves
First
Goes
Something
Age
Life
Whether
Use
Chose
Fear
Boredom
Hidden
Ends

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This is the first thing I have understood: Time is the echo of an axe within a wood.
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Depression hangs over me as if I were Iceland.
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The breath that sharpens life is life itself.
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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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One of the great criticisms of poets of the past is that they said one thing and did another.
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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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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
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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.
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Joy Is for the simple or the great to feel, Neither of which we are.
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Novels seem to me to be richer, broader, deeper, more enjoyable than poems.
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I have no enemies. But my friends don't like me.
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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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There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn't true!
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Clearly money has something to do with life.
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... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.
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The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.
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Everyone should be forcibly transplanted to another continent from their family at the age of three.
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I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
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We should be careful / Of each other, we should be kind / While there is still time.
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To write you must be warm, fed, loved and sober.
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