Quotes by Philip Larkin
Life is an immobile, locked, Three-handed struggle between...
My mother, who hates thunderstorms, Holds up each summer day and shakes It out suspiciously, lest swarms Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there....
In fact, may you be dull If that is what a skilled,...
And yet the sun pardons our voices still, And berries in the hedge...
Can even death dry up These new delighted lakes, conclude Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters?
Half life is over now, And I meet full face on dark mornings...
And the case of butterflies so rich it looks As if all summer settled there and died.
And the waves sing because they are moving. And the waves sing above a cemetery of waters.
All that's left to happen Is some deaths (my own included). Their order, and their manner, Remain to be learnt.
... a unique endeavour To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower Of being here.
Sixty years ago they smiled At lover, husband, first-born child....
... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.
You still might trace Uncalled-for to this day Your person, your place.
Since the majority of me Rejects the majority of you, Debating ends forthwith, and we Divide.
Endlessly, time-honoured irritant, A bubble is restively forming at your tip....
And yet spend all our life on imprecisions, That when we start to die Have no idea why.
Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork and drive the brute off?
"O what unlucky streak Twisting inside me, made me break the line?...
For nations vague as weed, For nomads among stones,...
