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

More quotes by Philip Larkin

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Home is so sad. It stays as it was left, / Shaped to the comfort of the last to go / As if to win them back
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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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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.
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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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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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Most people know more as they get older: I give all that the cold shoulder.
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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.
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As a child, I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realized it was just children I didn't like.
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We should be careful / Of each other, we should be kind / While there is still time.
Philip Larkin
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The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.
Philip Larkin
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SEX is designed for people who like overcoming obstacles.
Philip Larkin
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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?
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What are days for? Days are where we live.
Philip Larkin
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I don't think I write well - just better than anyone else.
Philip Larkin
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Life has a practice of living you, if you don't live it.
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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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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The difficult part of love Is being selfish enough.
Philip Larkin
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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.
Philip Larkin
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One of the great criticisms of poets of the past is that they said one thing and did another.
Philip Larkin