Philip Larkin

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.

— Philip Larkin

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.

— Philip Larkin

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

— Philip Larkin

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.

— Philip Larkin

Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (Which was rather late for me)--Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles' first LP.

— Philip Larkin

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?

— Philip Larkin

. . . lucky August, best of months For us, as for that Roman once--For you're a Leo, same as me (Isn't it comforting to be So lordly, selfish, vital, strong?

— Philip Larkin

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.

— Philip Larkin

Thinking in terms of one Is easily done-- One room, one bed, one chair, One person there, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But counting up to two Is harder to do.

— Philip Larkin

I spent my second quarter-century Losing what I had learnt at university And refusing to take in what had happened since.

— Philip Larkin

Presents and parties disappear, The cards grow fewer year by year, Till, when one reaches sixty-five, How many care we're still alive?

— Philip Larkin

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

— Philip Larkin

Continuing to live--that is, repeat A habit formed to get necessaries--Is nearly always losing, or going without.

— Philip Larkin