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Philip Larkin Quotes about Art

All Philip Larkin Quotes Age Aging Art quotes Children Death Fear Giving Home Literature Love Lying Past Poetry Reading Silence Sleep Solitude Water Work Writing
I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by children if you're not.

I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by children if you're not.

Philip Larkin
Art, Children, Life Is
Philip Larkin (2012). “Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica”, Faber & Faber

I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.

Philip Larkin
Art, Lying, Thinking

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 storing up the psychic energy that can then be released to create art or whatever it is. It's terrible the way we scotch silence & solitude at every turn, quite suicidal. I can't see how to avoid it, without being very rich or very unpopular, & it does worry me, for time is slipping by , and nothing is done. It isn't as if anything was gained by this social frivolity, It isn't: it's just a waste.

Philip Larkin
Art, Suicidal, Thinking
Philip Larkin (2012). “Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica”, Faber & Faber

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

Philip Larkin
Photography, Art, Faithful
Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.34, Faber & Faber

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

Philip Larkin
Photography, Art, Faithful
Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.34, Faber & Faber

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