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Philip Larkin Quotes (1922-1985)
Poet, Novelist
About Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist and librarian.
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“Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.”
Books are a load of crap.”
“But superstition, like belief, must die...”
“- to start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted.”
“Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.”
What will survive of us is love.”
“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.”
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.”
“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.”
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.”
“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.”
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.”
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.”
“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.”
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.”
“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”
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”
“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.”
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.”
“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.”
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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.”
“
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.
“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.”
“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 Quotes by Topic
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Philip Larkin on Poetry 2 quotes
“Novels are about other people and poems are about yourself”
Philip Larkin on Fruit
“Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit, Whatever they are.”
Philip Larkin on Antinatalism
Philip Larkin on Ageing
“Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and having people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.”
Philip Larkin on Green
“The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief.”
Philip Larkin on Death
Philip Larkin on Chess
Philip Larkin on Parenting
Philip Larkin on Holidays
“I have a theory that "holidays" evolved from the medieval pilgrimage, and are essentially a kind of penance for being so happy and comfortable in our daily lives.”
Philip Larkin on Trees
“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 on Breadfruit
“Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit, Whatever they are, As bribes to teach them how to execute Sixteen sexual positions on the sand; This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club, Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub By private car.Such uncorrected visions end in church Or registrar: A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch; Nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme With money; illness; age. So absolute Maturity falls, when old men sit and dream Of naked native girls who bring breadfruit Whatever they are.”
What Philip Larkin Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Philip Larkin shared regarding contemporaries.
Philip Larkin on Margaret Thatcher 2 quotes
“What a superb creature she is – right and beautiful – few prime ministers are either. But the country will let her down, too idle and selfish.”
Philip Larkin on Elizabeth II
“In times when nothing stood but worsened, or grew strange, there was one constant good: she did not change.”
Philip Larkin on Ted Hughes
“The sky split apart in malice Stars rattled like pans on a shelf Crow shat on Buckingham Palace God pissed Himself.”
Philip Larkin on Robert Smith Surtees
“I am reading Ask Mamma by Surtees... Despite my hatred of blood sports, I find him highly amusing (and he always lets the hares escape, have you noticed?).”
Philip Larkin on Humphrey Lyttelton
“One musn't be misled by the amiable, bumbling persona. ... He is a toughly intelligent man moving confidently in any kind of surroundings from Windsor Castle to Birdland.”
Philip Larkin on William Plomer
“His most celebrated poems are, of course, the historical-satirical ballads (A or even X certificate) in which a person or period is "hit off", in the sense both of being preserved and hit for six.”
Philip Larkin on Barbara Pym
Philip Larkin on Anthony Burgess
“The whole of English Lit. at the moment is being written by Anthony Burgess. He reviews all new books except those by himself, and these latter include such jeux d'esprit as A Shorter Finnegans Wake and so on. Do you know him? He must be a kind of Batman of contemporary letters. I hope he doesn't take to poetry.”
Philip Larkin on Evelyn Waugh
“It is impossible to imagine getting a letter from Evelyn Waugh, unless it were of the "Mr Waugh deeply regrets that he is unable to do what is so kindly proposed" sort. In the first place, one would have to have a nursery nickname and be a member of White's, a Roman Catholic, a high-born lady or an Old Etonian novelist.”
Philip Larkin on Gavin Ewart
“The back streets of Fulham, Yorkshiremen in pub gardens, a laboratory rabbit, office friendships, a cutting, a quotation – anything can start him off, and when he brings us back from the outing we are usually either shaken or stirred, and sometimes both, reflecting that there is really nothing, however surreal, extravagant, improper or mundane, that Ewart could not write a poem about.”
Quotes About Philip Larkin
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Philip Larkin from others.
Source on Philip Larkin 2 quotes
“Reprinted reviews are not, as a rule, easily acceptable, but this book of jazz criticism by a distinguished poet is a different case. For a start, the writing is as crisp as you might expect and the pieces, within their small compass, are beautifully shaped.”
George Melly on Philip Larkin
“His general thesis, a return to the human values of early jazz, is acceptable enough, but the waspish relish with which he attacks everything outside his own tastes is hysterical and in the end alienating, even to those of us who more or less agree with him.”
About Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist and librarian.