Quotes & Sayings About Larkin

Only the young can be alone freely. The time is shorter now for company, And sitting by a lamp more often brings Not peace, but other things. — Philip Larkin

But superstition, like belief, must die ... — Philip Larkin

LARKIN WATCHED Pike leaving, and in the moment he stepped outside, he was framed in the open door of their Echo Park house like a picture in a magazine, frozen in time and space. A big man, but not a giant. More average in size than not. With the sleeves covering his arms, and his face turned away, he seemed heartbreakingly normal, which made her love him even more. A superman risked nothing, but an average man risked everything. — Robert Crais

Maturity
A stationary sense ... as, I suppose,
I shall have, till my single body grows
Inaccurate, tired;
Then I shall start to feel the backward pull
Take over, sickening and masterful
Some say, desired.
And this must be the prime of life ... I blink,
As if at pain; for it is pain, to think
This pantomime
Of compensating act and counter-act,
Defeat and counterfeit, makes up, in fact,
My ablest time. — Philip Larkin

Now, helpless in the hollow of An unarmorial age, a trough Of smoke in slow suspended skeins Above their scrap of history, Only an attitude remains: Time has transfigured them into Untruth. The stone finality They hardly meant has come to be Their final blazon, and to prove Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love. — Philip Larkin

Still, vicious or virtuous,
Love suits most of us. — Philip Larkin

Something, like nothing, happens anywhere. — Philip Larkin

Dixie?" "Yeah." "You ever try to crack an AI?" "Sure. I flatlined. First time. I was larkin', jacked up real high, out by Rio heavy commerce sector. Big biz, multinationals, Government of Brazil lit up like a Christmas tree. — William Gibson

The difficult part of love
Is being selfish enough ... — Philip Larkin

Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull. — Alan Bennett

Teaching has given me a community that cares about poetry, and I'm grateful for that. — Joan Larkin

Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth. — Philip Larkin

I have wished you something
None of the others would ... — Philip Larkin

The men whose manhood you have broken will loathe you, and will always be brooding and scheming to strike a fresh blow. — James Larkin

Look at me, man, look at me and tell me I don't know what I'm about. I'm Conor Larkin. I'm an Irishman and I've had enough. — Leon Uris

Everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. — Philip Larkin

Saki says that youth is like hors d'oeuvres: you are so busy thinking of the next courses you don't notice it. When you've had them, you wish you'd had more hors d'oeuvres. — Philip Larkin

A mystery is not something that cannot be known, but something that for the time being is hidden. I hand you a sealed letter. What it contains is a mystery to you. Break the seal and read the letter and it ceases to be a mystery. But you may not be able to read the letter, because it is written in a language with which you are not familiar. Learn the language and the mystery ceases. But perhaps the letter contains technical terms which you do not understand, learn their meaning and all will be plain. That is the way with the Mysteries of the Scriptures, learn to read them by the help of their author, the Holy Spirit, and they will no longer be mysteries. — Clarence Larkin

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. — Philip Larkin

Too many of the men and women serving in Congress were political opportunists by habit, inclination, and experience. When a president was popular, they crowded in close, hoping to share in the limelight. But at the first sign of trouble or weakness they were only too eager to join the pack baying for his blood. — Patrick Larkin

I was a hyper kid, so I didn't want to play baseball and wait for the ball to come to me. I wanted to play a sport where I could go get the ball. — Shane Larkin

Poetry is nobody's business except the poet's, and everybody else can fuck off. — Philip Larkin

Now that's true poetic irony. I rush into battle to defend the fair name of Rose Larkin, and what does she do but fetch Robert to stop me. — Franny Billingsley

Sex means nothing
just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes. — Philip Larkin

It's easy to write when you've nothing to write about
(That is, when you are young) ... — Philip Larkin

He [Samuel Butler] made a practise of doing the forks last when washing up, on the grounds that he might die before he got to them. This is very much his principle of 'eating the grapes downwards', so that however many grapes you have eaten the next is always the best of the remainder. — Philip Larkin

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

Most of the musicians that I'm playing with now have jazz backgrounds, so they're comfortable with improvisation. And they all know to make eye contact with me, and I'll give them some kind of sign when I think that the song's ending. Or maybe I don't even have to, because they all sort of feel it at the same time. — Larkin Grimm

Novels seem to me to be richer, broader, deeper, more enjoyable than poems. — Philip Larkin

Why even live? If that's your goal, if you're just clamoring your way to the top, I mean, why even have a life? Somebody was telling me the other day about the lives of investment bankers who work ninety hours a week and how it affects their patterns of consumption. — Larkin Grimm

Life has a practice of living you, if you don't live it. — Philip Larkin

I remember there was this one lady shaman who said that having children puts a hole in your soul. And the only way to get it back is for your children to die. And, you know, monks don't have families. — Larkin Grimm

Most writers deserve the reputation posterity has bestowed upon them: You can't for long conceal the toxic spots on your character - Philip Larkin is Exhibit A - nor can you conceal your dignity, your humanism, your regard for veracity and freedom. — William Giraldi

I just know of so many musicians who burn out because they go on tour and they have to play their one-hit song over and over and over and over again. And they are not moved by their own song. And then when you go and see them perform there's something off. — Larkin Grimm

I, on the other hand, interrupt people because my thoughts fly out of my mouth. My handbag's full of rubbish. And I want to do something that matters with my life. Right now I'd like to write plays, sing in musicals, and/or rid the world of poverty, violence, cruelty, and right-wing conservative politics. — Alison Larkin

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. — Philip Larkin

I wonder love can have already set
In dreams, when we've not met
More times than I can number on one hand. — Philip Larkin

ASAP has helped IBM take more than $150 million worth of Unix business from Sun since its inception. — James Larkin

Whether the poet is living or dead, they're part of our imaginative community. — Joan Larkin

If you think you can, you can. Period. — Molly Larkin

You can't put off being young until you retire. — Philip Larkin

Keep growing. Stay awake. Beware of gurus. Keep a low overhead. — Joan Larkin

Some people is born at the start of a long hard row to hoe. Well, I am older than God's dog and been in this world a long time and it seems to me that right from the git-go, Larkin Stanton had the longest and hardest row I've ever seen. — Sheila Kay Adams

Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence. — Philip Larkin

My mother, who hates thunderstorms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there ... — Philip Larkin

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

I love Graham Larkin," she said quietly, her voice full of emotion, and there was a flicker of surprise on his face, and then his expression softened. "You're supposed to shout it," he said, smiling as she tugged on the brim of the cap, forcing him to lower his face, bringing him closer and closer until their lips met. And even though they were in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, lost in a sea of concrete and wood and metal, she could almost swear he tasted like the ocean. — Jennifer E. Smith

I have a love for Shea Stadium and its fans. I had so much fun with the fans. Yeah, they booed me. I was like, 'I know, I know.' — Barry Larkin

They both rise / Make for the Coke dispenser. 'What's he like? / Christ, I just told you. — Philip Larkin

Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
Whatever they are ... — Philip Larkin

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 ... — Philip Larkin

In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps,
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures. — Philip Larkin

I like spaghetti because you don't have to take your eyes off the book to pick about among it, it's all the same. — Philip Larkin

You understand your place in it, and you feel an incredible love for everyone and everything, and you're just sublimely happy, and then you're suddenly jolted back to reality, and you've got to deal with the world as it is — Larkin Grimm

There are some books in which every poem is a facet of the same thing. So the book is like a piece of music. And there are books of poems that I love so much that I carry them around with me. — Joan Larkin

A good meal can somewhat repair / The eatings of slight love — Philip Larkin

Depression hangs over me as if I were Iceland. — Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left, / Shaped to the comfort of the last to go / As if to win them back — Philip Larkin

HEADMASTER: I was a geographer. I went to Hull.
IRWIN: Oh. Larkin.
HEADMASTER: Everybody says that. 'Hull? Oh, Larkin.' I don't know about the poetry ... as I say, I was a geographer ... but as a librarian he was pitiless. The Himmler of the Accessions Desk. And now, we're told, women in droves.
Art. They get away with murder. — Alan Bennett

Anger is poison. Maybe — Matt Larkin

Most things may never happen: this one will. — Philip Larkin

I think, I just always want to leave the door open for, you know, I don't want it to be finished. I've never gotten sick of a song, I've played them over and over and over again, and if I get bored with something, then I'll just change that thing. — Larkin Grimm

I don't think I write well - just better than anyone else, — Philip Larkin

You've got to deal with the world with all of its troubles, while you've still got this alternate image. It's not about being in a different place or being in heaven, it's about seeing the world through magical eyes for a moment, and then being back in that same world, and everything is dull and gray. Having to remember the color. — Larkin Grimm

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

You can look out of your life like a train & see what you're heading for, but you can't stop the train. — Philip Larkin

I did a load of medicine cabinets a long time ago and I named them after Sex Pistols songs. I suppose I must be getting old if I'm naming work after Philip Larkin poems. — Damien Hirst

We are beaten, we will make no bones about it; but we are not too badly beaten still to fight. — James Larkin

...Newspapers, popular fiction, and magazines churned out words by the million, and the worn coins of everyday speech were less and less able to communicate anything more than the most commonplace meanings.... — Lachman Gary Larkin Steve

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

I've learned that by returning my calls between 11:00 a.m. and noon and 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. I can keep them short and to the point because people are either hungry and starting to think about lunch or they are trying to gear down at the end of the day. — Geri Larkin

As awkward as it sounds. I'm not Shane Larkin, Barry Larkin's son, anymore. It's Barry Larkin, the father of Shane Larkin. — Shane Larkin

If I looked into your face / expecting a word or a laugh on the old conditions, / it would not be a friend who met my eye — Philip Larkin

Comrades - We are living in momentous times. — James Larkin

Novels are about other people and poems are about yourself — Philip Larkin

It's about a love song to myself, and a love song to the universe, kind of like the way that Song of Solomon consists of love songs to God or like the way Sufi poems are erotic love songs to God, I kind of wanted something like that. Because I was getting to know myself more deeply at this point. I've always been on this track where I wanted to be enlightened. — Larkin Grimm

Man does not live by bread alone, but he certainly does not live without the bread. — Emmet Larkin

SEX is designed for people who like overcoming obstacles. — Philip Larkin

It's unthinkable not to love -you'd have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you'd have to be Philip Larkin. — Lawrence Durrell

Just like Jacob, Larkin made me realize that no matter how much you think you know a person-no matter how pretty they are, how together they act, or how popular they seem, you can never know what their lives are really like.
Not until you ask them.
And not unless you're listening. — Jess Rothenberg

Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, 'I am Mrs de Winter now! — Alan Bennett

If grief could burn out
Like a sunken coal,
The heart would rest quiet,
The unrent soul
Be still as a veil;
But I have watched all night

The fire grow silent,
The grey ash soft:
And I stir the stubborn flint
The flames have left,
And grief stirs, and the deft
Heart lies impotent. — Philip Larkin

I think everybody is psychic. I think it's one of the things in our subconscious that, for some reason, we've convinced ourselves that it's not real or possible, and luckily, we're getting closer and closer, I think we're using technology to give us these psychic powers that we already had. It's sort of like the idea that you can't dream up something unless it already exists. — Larkin Grimm

Is 'vagina' suitable for use
in a sonnet? I don't suppose so.
A famous poet told me, 'Vagina's ugly.'
Meaning, of course, the sound of it. In poems.
Meanwhile he inserts his penis frequently
into his verse, calling it seriously, 'My
Penis'. It is short, I know, and dignified.
I mean of course the sound of it. In poems. — Joan Larkin

Loneliness clarifies. 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. — Philip Larkin

Right now Andy Larkin is pitching just like young Andy Larkin. — Jerry Coleman

To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted — Philip Larkin

I remember playing on pretty much an all-minority youth team and going to some of the tournaments north of Cincinnati and not being able to stay with host families where all the other teams were staying with host families. — Barry Larkin

It means that the men who hold the means of life control our lives, and, because we workingmen have tried to get some measure of justice, some measure of betterment, they deny the right of the human being to associate with his fellow. — James Larkin

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

What's the point of living if it's going to be easy? — Jillian Larkin

A writer can have only one language, if language is going to mean anything to him. — Philip Larkin

Long Sight In Age
They say eyes clear with age,
As dew clarifies air
To sharpen evenings,
As if time put an edge
Round the last shape of things
To show them there;
The many-levelled trees,
The long soft tides of grass
Wrinkling away the gold
Wind-ridden waves- all these,
They say, come back to focus
As we grow old. — Philip Larkin

Parents fuck you up. They don't mean to but they do. — Philip Larkin

Rhythms and sounds are often the first thing I hear and want in a poem, so I can't imagine trying to translate something without at least being able to hear what it sounds like. — Joan Larkin

Since it was there, Larkin got another bowl, spooned up stew for himself.
"He fights with us. We're an army."
"An army? Talk about delusions of grandeur. What are you?" she asked Glenna.
"Witch."
"So, we've got a witch, a sorcerer, a couple of refugees from Geall and a vampire. Some army. — Nora Roberts

Poetry is emotional in nature and theatrical in operation. — Philip Larkin

I did enjoy football, but the injury factor for me, you know, I had so many issues. I don't know how long my career would've been. — Barry Larkin

What people don't realize is that professionals are sensational because of the fundamentals. — Barry Larkin