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
unique sanity affair
Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they are, to recreate the familar,eternalizing the poet's own poerception in unique and original verbal form.
novelists poet ifs
If you tell a novelist, 'Life's not like that', he has to do something about it. The poet simply replies, 'No, but I am.'
looks headings train
You can look out of your life like a train & see what you're heading for, but you can't stop the train.
distance white clouds
My age fallen away like white swaddling Floats in the middle distance, becomes An inhabited cloud.
party thinking years
One of the sadder things, I think, Is how our birthdays slowly sink: Presents and parties disappear, The cards grow fewer year by year, Till, when one reaches sixty-five, How many care we're still alive?
work bricks add
To put one brick upon another, Add a third, and then a fourth, Leaves no time to wonder whether What you do has any worth.
greatness hands feet
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....
daughter spring flower
Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous, Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water, Is earth's most multiple, excited daughter; And those she has least use for see her best, Their paths grown craven and circuitous, Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.
money
Clearly money has something to do with life....
freedom long slides
... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.
freedom ties self
No one can tear your thread out of himself. No one can tie you down or set you free.
sleep loving-others
In everyone there sleeps a sense of life lived according to love.
years aging century
I have started to say "A quarter of a century" Or "thirty years back" About my own life.
death courage mean
Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood.