Quotes by Philip Larkin
Death quarrels, and shakes the tree, And fears are flowers, and flowers are generation,...
The unique random blend Of families and fashions, there At last begin to loosen.
what most appals Is that tiny first shiver,...
Sinking like sediment through the day To leave it clearer, onto the floor of the flask...
With the nippers to wheel round the houses And the hall to paint in his old trousers...
This is what we fear—no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,...
The stained unsightly breath Of carious death.
Only one ship is seeking us a black- Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back A huge and birdless silence. In her wake...
To watch that world come up like a cold sun, Rewarding others, is my liberty....
No, I have never found The place where I could say...
Wet century-wide trees Clash in surrounding starlessness above...
Only our hearts go beating towards the east.
Sleep will unshell us, but not yet.
We are born each morning, shelled upon A sheet of light that paves...
Unhindered in the dingy wards Lives flicker out, one here, one there....
Where has it gone, the lifetime? Search me. What's left is drear....
Walk with the dead For fear of death.
Will you greet your doom As final; set him loaves and wine; knowing...
So. Let me accept the role, and call Myself the circumstances' tennis-ball:...
Remember then our only shape is death When mask and face are nailed apart at last....
Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
What Reply can the vast flowering strike from us, Unless it be the one You make today in London: to be married?
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.
When I see a couple of kids And guess he's fucking her and she's...
The bells discuss the hour's gradations, Dusty shelves hold prayers and proofs:...
