Philip Larkin Quotes - Page 5

The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously.

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.

Most things may never happen: this one will.

In times when nothing stood but worsened, or grew strange, there was one constant good: she did not change.

Since the majority of me Rejects the majority of you, Debating ends forthwith, and we Divide.'' Philip Larkin

Dear, I can't write, it's all a fantasy: a kind of circling obsession.

But O, Photography! as no art is, Faithful and disappointing!

But superstition, like belief, must die.

On me your voice falls as they say love should, Like an enormous yes.

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.

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke... Is a reminder of the strength and pain Of being young; that it can't come again, But is for others undiminished somewhere.

The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said.

Clearly money has something to do with life.

But, o, photography! as no art is,Faithful and disappointing! That recordsDull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds,And will not censor blemishes,Like washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards

Living in England has no such excuse: These are my customs and establishments.

... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Parting is a training streamer,Lingering like leaves in autumn.

Many famous feet have trod Sublunary paths, and famous hands have weighed The strength they have against the strength they need; And famous lips interrogated God Concerning franchise in eternity.

I listen to money singing, it's like looking down from long French windows at a provincial town. The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad in the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends; And past the poppies bluish neutral distance Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites, The costly aversion of the eyes from death- Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.

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.

And the case of butterflies so rich it looks As if all summer settled there and died.

Get stewed:Books are a load of crap.