“ An Arundel TombSide by side, their faces blurred,The earl and countess lie in stone,Their proper habits vaguely shownAs jointed armour, stiffened pleat,And that faint hint of the absurd -The little do… Philip Larkin
“ It's funny: one starts off thinking one is shrinkingly sensitive & intelligent & always one down & all the rest of it: then at thirty one finds one is a great clumping brute, incapable of appreciating… Philip Larkin
“ MaturityA stationary sense . . . as, I suppose,I shall have, till my single body grows Inaccurate, tired;Then I shall start to feel the backward pullTake over, sickening and masterful — Some say, de Philip Larkin
“ 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?Ah, solving that questionBrings the priest and the doctor In th… Philip Larkin
“ I had a moral tutor, but never saw him (the only words of his I remember are 'The three pleasures of life -drinking, smoking, and masturbation') 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. Philip Larkin
“ When I was a child, I thought,Casually, that solitudeNever needed to be sought.Something everybody had,Like nakedness, it lay at hand,Not specially right or specially wrong,A plentiful and obvious thi… Philip Larkin
“ 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
“ Strange to know nothing, never to be sureOf what is true or right or real,But forced to qualify or so I feel,Or Well, it does seem so:Someone must know.Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:Th… Philip Larkin
“ If grief could burn outLike a sunken coal,The heart would rest quiet, The unrent soulBe still as a veil; But I have watched all nightThe fire grow silent, The grey ash soft:And I stir the stubborn fli… Philip Larkin
“ The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I foundA hedgehog jammed up against the blades,Killed. It had been in the long grass.I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.Now I had mauled its unobtrusive wo… Philip Larkin
“ I have a sense of melancholy isolation, life rapidly vanishing, all the usual things. It's very strange how often strong feelings don't seem to carry any message of action. Philip Larkin
“ You know, I know I should be just as panicky as you about the filthy work - one wants to do nothing in the evenings, certainly not spread rotten books around & dredge for a 'line'. It must be like sti… Philip Larkin
“ Work is a kind of vacuum, an emptiness, where I just switch off everything except the scant intelligence necessary to keep me going. God, the people are awful - great carved monstrosities from the spo… Philip Larkin
“ How little our careers express what lies in us, and yet how much time they take up. It's sad, really. Philip Larkin
“ When getting my nose in a bookCured most things short of school,It was worth ruining my eyesTo know I could still keep cool,And deal out the old right hookTo dirty dogs twice my size.Later, with inch-… 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 up time when you might be doing individual private things, but it prevents you s… Philip Larkin
