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Philip Larkin
49 quotes
“What was the rock my gliding childhood struck, And what bright unreal path has led me here?”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lines from an early poem, letter to J. B. Sutton (16 April 1941)
“Poetry = heightened talking. Novel = heightened story. Painting = heightened seeing.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (23 May 1941) <!-- Anthony Thwaite, ed., Selected Letters of Philip
“My mother, not content with being motionless, deaf and speechless, is now going blind. That's what you get for not dying, you see.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Kingsley Amis (24 October 1947)
“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 (1922–1985) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to J. B. Sutton (21 December 1942)
“I search myself for illusions like a monkey looking for fleas.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (13 July 1949)
“If we seriously contemplate life it appears an agony too great to be supported, but for the most part our minds gloss such things over & until the ice finally lets us through we skate about merrily enough. Most people, I'm convinced, don't think about life at all. They grab what they think they want and the subsequent consequences keep them busy in an endless chain till they're carried out feet first.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to J. B. Sutton (30 October 1949)
“I am beginning to think of the creative imagination as a fruit machine on which victories are rare and separated by much vain expense, and represent a rare alignment of mental and spiritual qualities that normally are quite at odds.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (26 February 1950)
“To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Winifred Arnott (7 October 1953)
“Marriage, well. I think of it as a marvellous thing for other people, like going to the stake.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (2 March 1965) <!-- Anthony Thwaite, ed., Selected Letters of
“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 (1922–1985) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Monica Jones (22 October 1967)
“I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in The Review, published by Ian Hamilton (1972)
“The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse —The good not done, the love not given, time Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; But at the total emptiness for ever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Aubade", st. 2, in The Times Literary Supplement (23 December 1977)
“Postmen like doctors go from house to house.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be carefulOf each other, we should be kind While there is still time.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Mower", Humberside (Hull Literary Club magazine) (Autumn 1979) [12 June 1979]
“Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Miriam Gross, "A voice for our time" in The Observer (16 December 1979); republished in Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces, 1955–1982 (1983)
“Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they are, to recreate the familiar, eternalizing the poet's own perception in unique and original verbal form.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Required Writing (1983)
“But, o, photography! as no art is, Faithful and disappointing! That records Dull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds, And will not censor blemishes, Like washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I, whose childhood Is a forgotten boredom, Feel like a child Who comes on a scene Of adult reconciling, And can understand nothing But the unusual laughter, And starts to be happy.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only one ship is seeking us, a black- Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back A huge and birdless silence. In her wake No waters breed or break.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some brass and stuff Up at the holy end.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone?”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their nippers have got bare feet, Their unspeakable wives Are skinny as whippets—and yet No one actually starves.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days?”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Days" [1953]
“Time has transfigured them into Untruth. The stone fidelity They hardly meant has come to be Their final blazon, and to prove Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Arundel Tomb" [20 February 1956]
“The glare of that much-mentioned brilliance, love, Broke out, to show Its bright incipience sailing above, Still promising to solve, and satisfy, And set unchangeably in order. So To pile them back, to cry, Was hard, without lamely admitting how It had not done so then, and could not now.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Love Songs in Age" [1 January 1957]
“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.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Home Is so Sad" [1958]
“Don’t read too much now: the dude Who lets the girl down before The hero arrives, the chap Who’s yellow and keeps the store, Seem far too familiar. Get stewed: Books are a load of crap.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Study of Reading Habits" [20 August 1960]
“Talking in bed ought to be easiest, Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Talking in Bed" [1960]
“Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word — the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages, Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Give me your arm, old toad; Help me down Cemetery Road.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I thought of London spread out in the sun, Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hardness and the brightness and the plain Far-reaching singleness of that wide stareIs a reminder of the strength and pain Of being young; that it can't come again, But is for others undiminished somewhere.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sad Steps", sts. 5 and 6 [1968]
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This Be The Verse" [c. April 1971]
“Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (Which was rather late for me)— Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Next year we are to bring the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Next year we shall be living in a country That brought its soldiers home for lack of money. The statues will be standing in the same Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same. Our children will not know it’s a different country. All we can hope to leave them now is money.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms Inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: ‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully? I am all you never had of goods and sex. You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief.Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain.Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A beautiful animation of Philip Larkin’s The Trees", BBC (2 December 2015), Online
“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 (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think ... someone might do a little research on some of the inherent qualities of sex – its cruelty, its bullyingness, for instance. It seems to me that bending someone else to your will is the very stuff of sex, by force or neglect if you are male, by spitefulness or nagging or scenes if you are female. And what's more, both sides would sooner have it that way than not at all. I wouldn't. And I suspect that means not that I can enjoy sex in my own quiet way but that I can't enjoy it at all. It's like rugby football: either you like kicking & being kicked, or your soul cringes away from the whole affair. There's no way of quietly enjoying rugby football.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Monica Jones (1 November 1951), as quoted by Martin Amis, "Philip Larkin's women", The Guardian (23 October 2010)
“You know I don’t care at all for politics, intelligently. I found that at school when we argued all we did was repeat the stuff we had, respectively, learnt from the Worker, the Herald, Peace News, the Right Book Club (that was me, incidentally: I knew these dictators, Marching Spain, I can remember them now) and as they all contradicted each other all we did was get annoyed. I came to the conclusion that an enormous amount of research was needed to form an opinion on anything, & therefore I abandoned politics altogether as a topic of conversation. It’s true that the writers I grew up to admire were either non-political or Left-wing, & that I couldn’t find any Right-wing writer worthy of respect, but of course most of the ones I admired were awful fools or somewhat fakey, so I don’t know if my prejudice for the Left takes its origin there or not. But if you annoy me by speaking your mind in the other interest, it’s not because I feel sacred things are being mocked but because I can’t reply, not (as usual) knowing enough. ... By the way, of course I’m terribly conventional, by necessity! Anyone afraid to say boo to a goose is conventional.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Monica Jones, from Belfast (5 August 1953)