Philip Larkin - People Quotes

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I am always trying to 'preserve' things by getting other people to read what I have written, and feel what I felt.

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

I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any - after all, most people are unhappy, don't you think?

Philip Larkin

Marriage, well. I think of it as a marvellous thing for other people, like going to the stake.

Philip Larkin

The realization that it was not people I disliked but children was for me one of those celebrated moments of revelation.

On growing up

Philip Larkin

If we seriously contemplate life it appears an agony too great to be supported, but for the most part our minds gloss such things over & until the ice finally lets us through we skate about merrily enough. Most people, I'm convinced, don't think about life at all. They grab what they think they want and the subsequent consequences keep them busy in an endless chain till they're carried out feet first.

Philip Larkin