Marinaros Larkin Quotes

As a guiding principle I believe that every poem must be its own sole freshly created universe, and therefore have no belief n 'tradition' or a common myth-kitty or casual allusions in poems to other poems or poets, which last I find unpleasantly like the talk of literary understrappers letting you see they know the right people. ~ Philip Larkin

The employers cannot carry on industry nor accumulate profits if they have not got the good will of the workers or their acquiescence in carrying on such industry. ~ James Larkin

I've learned that by returning my calls between 11:00 a.m. and noon and 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. I can keep them short and to the point because people are either hungry and starting to think about lunch or they are trying to gear down at the end of the day. ~ Geri Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left, / Shaped to the comfort of the last to go / As if to win them back ~ Philip Larkin

I love Graham Larkin," she said quietly, her voice full of emotion, and there was a flicker of surprise on his face, and then his expression softened. "You're supposed to shout it," he said, smiling as she tugged on the brim of the cap, forcing him to lower his face, bringing him closer and closer until their lips met. And even though they were in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, lost in a sea of concrete and wood and metal, she could almost swear he tasted like the ocean. ~ Jennifer E. Smith

Anger is poison. Maybe ~ Matt Larkin

Men whose first coronary is coming like Christmas; who drift, loaded helplessly with commitments and obligations and necessary observances, into the darkening avenues of age and incapacity, deserted by everything that once made life sweet. These I have tried to remind of the excitement of jazz and tell where it may still be found. ~ Philip Larkin

I tried to read Handmaid's tale, really I did, but every time I opened the book, I recalled the movie from 199 all too vividly. I threw up then and unfortunately, that brought back memories of my time in the middle east with the Marine Corp , where I witnessed the murders, rapes and brutality. I can't forget the screams. David Larkin. ~ Margret Atwood

Teaching has given me a community that cares about poetry, and I'm grateful for that. ~ Joan Larkin

Anderson's papers and slide shows have become more alarming. Under titles such as "Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous . . . Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope," he points out that the chances of staying within anything like safe temperature levels are diminishing fast. With his colleague Alice Bows-Larkin, an atmospheric physicist and climate change mitigation expert at the Tyndall Centre, Anderson argues that we have lost so much time to political stalling and weak climate policies - all while emissions ballooned - that we are now facing cuts so drastic that they challenge the core expansionist logic at the heart of our economic system. ~ Naomi Klein

Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they are. ~ Philip Larkin

Maturity
A stationary sense ... as, I suppose,
I shall have, till my single body grows
Inaccurate, tired;
Then I shall start to feel the backward pull
Take over, sickening and masterful
Some say, desired.
And this must be the prime of life ... I blink,
As if at pain; for it is pain, to think
This pantomime
Of compensating act and counter-act,
Defeat and counterfeit, makes up, in fact,
My ablest time. ~ Philip Larkin

Sometimes I'm in love with Persephone," Larkin confessed. "And sometimes I'm not, but I want to be. And sometimes I'm relieved to feel nothing for her at all. ~ Kate Mascarenhas

What will survive of us is love. ~ Philip Larkin

One of the sadder things, I think,
Is how our birthdays slowly sink:
Presents and parties disappear,
The cards grow fewer year by year,
Till, when one reaches sixty-five,
How many care we're still alive? ~ Philip Larkin

It's unthinkable not to love -you'd have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you'd have to be Philip Larkin. ~ Lawrence Durrell

Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence. ~ Philip Larkin

As awkward as it sounds. I'm not Shane Larkin, Barry Larkin's son, anymore. It's Barry Larkin, the father of Shane Larkin. ~ Shane Larkin

Interesting, but futile,' said his diary,
Where day by day his movements were recorded
And nothing but his loves received inquiry;
He knew, of course, no actions were rewarded,
There were no prizes: though the eye could see
Wide beauty in a motion or a pause,
It need expect no lasting salary
Beyond the bounds' momentary applause.

He lived for years and never was surprised:
A member of his foolish, lying race
Explained away their vices: realised
It was a gift that he possessed alone:
To look the world directly in the face;
The face he did not see to be his own.

- A Writer ~ Philip Larkin

Ought we to smile / Perhaps make friends? No: in the race for seats / You're best alone. Friendship is not worth while. ~ Philip Larkin

Since the majority of me Rejects the majority of you, Debating ends forthwith, and we Divide.' Philip Larkin ~ Philip Larkin

I was sleeping, and you woke me
To walk on the chilled shore
Of a night with no memory,
Till your voice forsook my ear
Till your two hands withdrew
And I was empty of tears,
On the edge of a bricked and streeted sea
And a cold hill of stars. ~ Philip Larkin

When I was working at Omega, I took this Zen retreat, where you're quiet, you don't say anything for a week, and this guy there said, "You're going to be enlightened at the end of this week, that's my goal." I was the engineer, so I was recording everything at it was happening, but I was also participating, because I felt like it. So at the end of it, I did understand what enlightenment was, one-hundred percent. ~ Larkin Grimm

Parting is a training streamer,Lingering like leaves in autumn ... ~ Philip Larkin

Where you go to these really good schools, and it's all about preparing for the next step of success. That was never even on my radar. My job is to explore the world, because this is my one life, you know? That's totally how I see it. But I came to Yale just being like, Yeah, now I get to explore this place and meet all these people who are really smart. And I was just excited to be surrounded by people who were as smart as me or were probably smarter. And I just did not expect the level of competition and bitterness and anger, and, the tearing each other down. ~ Larkin Grimm

The stance I took was there is no room for racial bias anywhere in sports. I believe that was basically all I said about it. Certainly I was cast as an abolitionist. Death threats came. Hate mail came. ~ Barry Larkin

Man must be associated with his fellows. ~ James Larkin

That was a pretty one, I heard you call
From the unsatisfactory hall
To the unsatisfactory room where I
Played record after record, idly,
Wasting my time at home, that you
Looked so much forward to.

Oliver's Riverside Blues, it was. And now
I shall, I suppose, always remember how
The flock of notes those antique Negroes blew
Our of Chicago air into
A huge remembering pre-electric horn
The year after I was born
Three decades later made this sudden bridge
From your unsatisfactory age
To my unsatisfactory prime.

Truly, though our element is time,
We're not suited to the long perspectives
Open at each instant of our lives.
They link us to our losses: worse,
They show us what we have as it once was,
Blindingly undiminished, just as though
By acting differently we could have kept it so.

- Reference Back ~ Philip Larkin

In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps,
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures. ~ Philip Larkin

A writer once said to me, If you ever go to America, go either to the East Coast or the West Coast: The rest is a desert full of bigots. That's what I think I'd like ... a version of pastoral. ~ Philip Larkin

...Newspapers, popular fiction, and magazines churned out words by the million, and the worn coins of everyday speech were less and less able to communicate anything more than the most commonplace meanings.... ~ Lachman Gary Larkin Steve

The best thanks we could offer those who went before and raised the Irish working class from their knees was to press forward with determination and enthusiasm towards the ultimate goal of their efforts, a Co-operative Commonwealth for Ireland. ~ James Larkin

So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago. ~ Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh. ~ Philip Larkin

I have started to say
"A quarter of a century"
Or "thirty years back"
About my own life. ~ 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

I love stories, but writing fiction is another craft and I don't feel as if I have it. ~ Joan Larkin

The Muslim women that I have met are super-powerful and amazing and smart and they are, they're not allowing themselves to be held back by the laws that exist. And you know, the Internet exists now, and mobile phones are freeing up stuff. I have a really good friend who's from Iran and a really good friend who's from Kuwait, and they talk about getting music on the black market and how that's such an intense, amazing experience. And how they value the music so much more, because it's such a risk to own it. ~ Larkin Grimm

After a while, Hannah said, "I heard Papa and Mama talking last night. Mama told Papa she thinks John Larkin is fond of me."
To my annoyance, a little smile danced across her face. "I'm fond of John too," she admitted, "but Papa--"
Hannah bit her lip and frowned. "Papa said a girl with my notions will never find a husband. He told Mama I'd end up an old-maid suffragette. Those were his very words, Andrew."
Forgetting everything except making her happy, I said, "No matter what Papa thinks, you'll marry John. What's more, women will get the vote and drive cars and do everything men do, even wear trousers and run for president."
Hannah sucked in her breath. "The way you talk, Andrew. I could swear you've been looking in a crystal ball."
Clapping my hand over my mouth, I stared at her. Whatever had made me say so much? I didn't even want to think about her marrying John, and here I'd gone and told her she would, as well as revealing a bunch of other stuff she shouldn't know.
"Do you see anything else in my future?" Hannah was leaning toward me, her face inches from mine, gazing into my eyes, her lips slightly parted. "Will John and I be happy? Will we have lots of children? Will we live a long, long time?"
I tightened my grip on the branch. I was drowning, losing my identity, speaking words that made no sense. "You'll be old when I'm young," I whispered, "but I'll remember, I'll never forget, I'll always love--"
"What are you talking about? ~ Mary Downing Hahn

Once, on a walk by a river- Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow- his daughter quoted to him an opening verse by her favourite poet. Apparently, not many young women loved Phillip Larkin the way she did. 'If I were to construct a religion/ I should make use of water.' She said she liked the laconic use of 'called in'- as if he would be, as if anyone ever is. They stopped to drink coffee from a flask, and Perowne, tracing a line of lichen with a finger, said that if he ever got the call, he'd make us of evolution. What better creation myth? An unimaginable sweep of time, numberless generations spawning by infinitesimal steps complex living beauty out of inert matter, driven on by the blind furies of random mutation, natural selection and environmental change, with the tragedy of forms continually dying, and lately the wonder of minds emerging and with them morality, love, art, cities- and the unprecedented bonus of this story happening to be demonstrably true. ~ Ian McEwan

The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
From The Mower ~ Philip Larkin

The difficult part of love
Is being selfish enough ... ~ Philip Larkin

I am careful about my conduct because I know this cause requires clean men. ~ James Larkin

My mother, who hates thunderstorms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there ... ~ Philip Larkin

Usually, I think it's best to play the song for them once and have them mix it up on the spot, because when the logical mind gets too involved, I think it kills a lot of magic. I just think the subconscious mind is so much smarter, and unfortunately, people do not trust their subconscious. A lot of people just don't access to all of that, the secret genius that's inside of them. And it's so much easier to get it out of a musician if you don't give them a chance to overthink. ~ Larkin Grimm

All the unhurried day / Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives, ~ Philip Larkin

Spanish and English have such different music, and in my own poetry I feel much less drawn to fluid sounds than I do toward the hard sounds and rhythms that come out of the Anglo-Saxon roots of English. ~ Joan Larkin

Is 'vagina' suitable for use
in a sonnet? I don't suppose so.
A famous poet told me, 'Vagina's ugly.'
Meaning, of course, the sound of it. In poems.
Meanwhile he inserts his penis frequently
into his verse, calling it seriously, 'My
Penis'. It is short, I know, and dignified.
I mean of course the sound of it. In poems. ~ Joan Larkin