Philip Larkin quotes

I wouldn't mind seeing China if I could come back the same day. (Philip Larkin)
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife. View quote
Philip Larkin
Something, like nothing, happens anywhere. View quote
Philip Larkin
Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth. View quote
Philip Larkin
I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals. View quote
Philip Larkin
What will survive of us is love. - from. View quote
Philip Larkin
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. View quote
Philip Larkin
Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes. View quote
Philip Larkin
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. View quote
Philip Larkin
I have no enemies. But my friends don't like me. View quote
Philip Larkin
Everyone should be forcibly transplanted to another continent from their family at the age of three. (Philip Larkin)
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. View quote
Philip Larkin
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. View quote
Philip Larkin
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. View quote
Philip Larkin
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. View quote
Philip Larkin
Get stewed: Books are a load of crap. View quote
Philip Larkin
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. View quote
Philip Larkin
You can look out of your life like a train & see what you're heading for, but you can't stop the train. View quote
Philip Larkin
You can't put off being young until you retire. View quote
Philip Larkin
to start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted. View quote
Philip Larkin
SEX is designed for people who like overcoming obstacles. (Philip Larkin)
Depression hangs over me as if I were Iceland. View quote
Philip Larkin
Dear, I can't write, it's all a fantasy: a kind of circling obsession. View quote
Philip Larkin
Only in books the flat and final happens, Only in dreams we meet and interlock.... View quote
Philip Larkin
I am always trying to 'preserve' things by getting other people to read what I have written, and feel what I felt. View quote
Philip Larkin