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.”

“Poetry is nobody’s business except the poet’s, and everybody else can fuck off.”

“Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”

“What do they think has happened, the old fools, To make them like this ? Do they somehow suppose It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember Who called this morning ? Or that, if they only chose, They could alter things back to when t...”

“I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by children if you're not.”

“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.”