Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin CH CBE FRSLwas an English poet, novelist and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jilland A Girl in Winter, and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddingsand High Windows. He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered in All What Jazz: A...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 August 1922
writing sober feds
To write you must be warm, fed, loved and sober.
writing kind fantasy
Dear, I can't write, it's all a fantasy: a kind of circling obsession.
writing sleep organization
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
thinking america west-coast
A writer once said to me, If you ever go to America, go either to the East Coast or the West Coast: The rest is a desert full of bigots. That's what I think I'd like . . . a version of pastoral.
writing novel deeper
Novels seem to me to be richer, broader, deeper, more enjoyable than poems.
writing pity good-authors
There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn't true!
wisdom people giving
Most people know more as they get older: I give all that the cold shoulder.
home existence elsewhere
Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.
kids men hands
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.
love dream hands
I wonder love can have already set In dreams, when we've not met More times than I can number on one hand.
children growing-up simple
Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.
thinking cushions subversive
I think we got much better poetry when it was all regarded as sinful or subversive, and you had to hide it under the cushion when somebody came in.
children grew hated
As a child, I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realized it was just children I didn't like.