Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms — Philip Larkin

"What was the rock my gliding childhood struck, And what bright unreal path has led me here?"

"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, Im convinced, dont think about life at all. They grab what they think they want and the subsequent consequences keep them busy in an endless chain till theyre carried out feet first."

"I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals."

"To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted."

"You know I don’t care at all for politics, intelligently. I found that at school when we argued all we did was repeat the stuff we had, respectively, learnt from the Worker, the Herald, Peace News, the Right Book Club (that was me, incidentally: I knew these dictators, Marching Spain, I can remember them now) and as they all contradicted each other all we did was get annoyed. I came to the conclusion that an enormous amount of research was needed to form an opinion on anything, & therefore I abandoned politics altogether as a topic of conversation. It’s true that the writers I grew up to admire were either non-political or Left-wing, & that I couldn’t find any Right-wing writer worthy of respect, but of course most of the ones I admired were awful fools or somewhat fakey, so I don’t know if my prejudice for the Left takes its origin there or not. But if you annoy me by speaking your mind in the other interest, it’s not because I feel sacred things are being mocked but because I can’t reply, not (as usual) knowing enough. ... By the way, of course I’m terribly conventional, by necessity! Anyone afraid to say boo to a goose is conventional."

"Life and literature is a question of what one thrills to, and further than that no man shall ever go without putting his foot in a turd."