(9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985 / West Midlands / England)

poet Philip Larkin
#23 on top 500 poets

Quotations

  • ''And girls you have to tell to pull their socks up
    Are those whose pants you'd most like to pull down.''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Administration."
    203 person liked.
    		53 person did not like.
  • ''And why was all
    Your body sharpened against me, vigilant,
    Watchful, when all I meant
    Was to make it bright, that it might stand
    Burnished before my tent?''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Deep Analysis."
    53 person liked.
    		35 person did not like.
  • ''calm and dry,
    It holds you like a heaven, and you lie
    Unvariably lovely there,
    Smaller and clearer as the years go by.''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1985), British poet. Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album (l. 42-45). . . Collected Poems of Philip Larkin. Anthony Thwaite, ed. (1988) Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
    49 person liked.
    		22 person did not like.
  • ''Books; china; a life
    Reprehensibly perfect.''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Poetry of Departures."
    31 person liked.
    		23 person did not like.
  • ''"A woman has ten claws,"
    Sang the drunken boatswain....''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "The North Ship."
    7 person liked.
    		8 person did not like.
  • ''All the familiar horrors we
    Associate with others
    Are coming fast along our way:
    The wind is warning in our tree
    And morning papers still betray
    The shrieking of the mothers.''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "After-Dinner Remarks."
    8 person liked.
    		6 person did not like.
  • ''I could not follow your wishes, but I know
    If they assuaged you
    It would not be crying in this dark, your sorrow,
    It would not be crying, so
    That my own heart drifts and cries, having no death
    Because of the darkness,
    Having only your grief under my mouth
    Because of the darkness.''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Deep Analysis."
    8 person liked.
    		3 person did not like.
  • ''Those flowers, that gate,
    These misty parks and motors, lacerate
    Simply by being over; you
    Contract my heart by looking out of date.''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1985), British poet. Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album (l. 27-30). . . Collected Poems of Philip Larkin. Anthony Thwaite, ed. (1988) Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
    7 person liked.
    		3 person did not like.
  • ''He walked out on the whole crowd
    Leaves me flushed and stirred,
    Like Then she undid her dress
    Or Take that you bastard;
    Surely I can, if he did?''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Poetry of Departures."
    9 person liked.
    		4 person did not like.
  • ''That is where they live:
    Not here and now, but where all happened once.
    This is why they give
    An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
    Yet being here.''
    Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "The Old Fools."
    13 person liked.
    		2 person did not like.

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Toads Revisited

Walking around in the park
Should feel better than work:
The lake, the sunshine,
The grass to lie on,

Blurred playground noises
Beyond black-stockinged nurses -
Not a bad place to be.
Yet it doesn't suit me.

Read more »
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