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Philip Larkin Quotes

Philip Larkin quotes about writing

English Poet August 9, 1922 – December 2, 1985

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Quotes

Empty-page staring again tonight. It's maddening. I suppose people who don't write (like the Connollies) imagine anything that can be though can be expressed. Well, I don't know. I can't do it. It's this sort of thing that makes me belittle the whole business: what's the good of a 'talent' if you can't do it when you want to? What should we think of a woodcarver who couldn't woodcarver? or a pianist who couldn't play the piano? Bah, likewise grrr. Philip Larkin
I really am going to meet Forster: I thought I shouldn't, but apparently the old boy E.M.F. is saying with remembered my name & I am bid to John Hewitt's at 8 tomorrow. Shall I ask him if he's a homo? It's the only thing I really want to know about him, you see. I don't even care why he packed up writing. Philip Larkin
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife. Philip Larkin
Often one spends weeks trying to write a poem out of the conscious mind that never comes to anything - these are sort of 'ideal' poems that one feels ought to be written, but don't because (I fancy) they lack the vital spark of self-interest. A 'real' poem is a pleasure to write. Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin quote: "Dear, I can't write, it's all a fantasy: a kind of circling..."
Dear, I can't write, it's all a fantasy: a kind of circling obsession. 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

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