Writer Quotes by Philip Larkin

Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.

— Philip Larkin

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her backA huge and birdless silence. In her wakeNo waters breed or break.

— Philip Larkin

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,…

— Philip Larkin

“Living toys are something novel, But it soon wears off somehow.”

— Philip Larkin

“Once I am sure there's nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little…

— Philip Larkin

Life is first boredom, then fear. Whether or not we use it, it goes, And leaves what something hidden from us chose, age, and…

— Philip Larkin

“It never worked for me. Something to do with violence A long way back, and wrong rewards, And arrogant eternity.”

— Philip Larkin

Seriously, I think it is a grave fault in life that so much time is wasted in social matters, because it not only takes…

— Philip Larkin

So many things I had thought forgotten Return to my mind with stranger pain: Like letters that arrive addressed to someone Who left the…

— Philip Larkin

“One of the quainter quirks of life is that we shall never know who dies on the same day as we do ourselves.”

— Philip Larkin

“I sit in my room like Miss Havisham, about whom I have been reading this week. Better the Dickens you know than the Dickens…

— Philip Larkin

“When I throw back my head and howl People (women mostly) say But you've always done what you want, You always get your way…

— Philip Larkin

I think a young poet, or an old poet, for that matter, should try to produce something that pleases himself personally, not only when…

— Philip Larkin

But superstition, like belief, must die.

— Philip Larkin

“Side by side, their faces blurred, The earl and countess lie in stone, Their proper habits vaguely shown As jointed armour, stiffened pleat, And…

— Philip Larkin