Philip Larkin Quotes - Page 4

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Age Aging Art Books Children Death Dreams

Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.

Philip Larkin

Sex, Mean, Moments

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What are days for?
Days are where we live.

Philip Larkin

'Days' (1964)

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Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Philip Larkin

Death, Courage, Mean

Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.172, Faber & Faber

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Give me a thrill, says the reader,
Give me a kick;
I don't care how you succeed, or
What subject you pick.

Philip Larkin

Reading, Giving, Thrill

Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.153, Faber & Faber

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I'd like to think...that people in pubs would talk about my poems

Philip Larkin

Thinking, People, Pubs

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My mother, who hates thunderstorms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there.

Philip Larkin

Summer, Mother, Hate

Philip Larkin, “Mother, Summer, I”

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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

Simple, Sea, Support

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I am not sure, once a poet has found out what has been written already, and how it was written - once, in short, he has learnt his trade - that he should bother with literature at all. Poetry is not like surgery, a technique that can be copied. Every operation the poet performs is unique, and need never be done again.

Philip Larkin

Unique, Technique, Needs

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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

Work, Toads, Bills

'Toads' (1955)

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And immediately 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

Glasses, Air, Blue

High Windows (1974) "High Windows"

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Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, Have always known, know that we can't escape, Yet can't accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin

Doctors, Light, Sky

Philip Larkin, “Aubade”

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All the unhurried day / Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.

Philip Larkin

Knives, Mind, Drawers

Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.58, Faber & Faber

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Heads in the Women's Ward On pillow after pillow lies The wild white hair and staring eyes; Jaws stand open; necks are stretched With every tendon sharply sketched; A bearded mouth talks silently To someone no one else can see. Sixty years ago they smiled At lover, husband, first-born child. Smiles are for youth. For old age come Death's terror and delirium.

Philip Larkin

Children, Husband, Lying

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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

Past, Poetry, Criticism

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The breath that sharpens life is life itself.

Philip Larkin

Life Is, Breaths

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A writer can have only one language, if language is going to mean anything to him.

Philip Larkin

Mean, Language, Ifs

Philip Larkin (2012). “Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982”, p.63, Faber & Faber

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Most people know more as they get older:
I give all that the cold shoulder.

Philip Larkin

Wisdom, People, Giving

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Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous,
Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water,
Is earth's most multiple, excited daughter;
And those she has least use for see her best,
Their paths grown craven and circuitous,
Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.

Philip Larkin

Daughter, Spring, Flower

Philip Larkin (2012). “The Less Deceived”, p.29, Faber & Faber

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Still, vicious or virtuous,
Love suits most of us.

Philip Larkin

Love, Suits, Vicious

Philip Larkin (2012). “Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis”, p.91, Faber & Faber

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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

Fear, Boredom, Age

'Dockery & Son' (1964)

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I am awakened each dawn
Increasingly to fear.

Philip Larkin

Fear, Dawn, Awakened

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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

Drinking, Giving, Musical

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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.

Philip Larkin

Couple, Reading, Thinking

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In everyone there sleeps a sense of life lived according to love.

Philip Larkin

Sleep, Loving Others

Philip Larkin (2012). “The Whitsun Weddings”, p.12, Faber & Faber

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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.

Philip Larkin

Ideas, Feelings, Desire

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Born: August 9, 1922
Died: December 2, 1985
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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