Philip Larkin Quotes

If it’s a pure expression of yourself no matter what it is or what medium, it’s going to shine. It’s going to resonate. You could look inside of yourself and you could have a canvas and you could paint a dot in it, but if that is where your creative purpose is taking you then it needs to be that dot.

If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.

It's hard enough for me to write what I want to write without me trying to write what you say they want me to write which I don't want to write.

In a poem, the words happen; they just come. I let them. Otherwise, I wouldn't write. To interfere with what is happening is to distort the poem. Just a very small degree of intelligence and supervision is necessary. Very tactful. Any revision later that violates the text as it came, that begins rewriting the words, is fake.

I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, and if you're afraid it's going to upset someone, don't publish it.

Bernard Shaw said that when you copy yourself, you know you've got style. And I feel that if you can write like you write, then you are true to yourself. And it's not an easy thing to do - it's a disgustingly difficult thing to do.

It is one test of a fully developed writer that he reminds us of no one but himself.

I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

I would like to be able to write in my own voice.

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

I've always been the audience that I wanted to reach, so I write for myself.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Write what you would love to read. Finish what you begin to write. Your voice is uniquely yours and we are all waiting to hear it.

If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I should suppress it with a blush; and I should do the same if I ever found I were imitating myself. Every poem should be new, unexpected, inimitable, and incapable of being parodied.

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.

He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.

Write what you think is good, is the whole of the law.

What I aspire to do, and what I try the hardest to do, is write stuff that's very personal in its way. I figure I can only say things the way I say them, so I'm trying to do something that is kind of anti-generic.

I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using.

I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody.

Sometimes, there's a preconceived notion of how a scene or how a work should be delivered. And I see young performers sometimes try and deliver that, and it's not really true to their voice or who they are.

I've always enjoyed feeling a connection to the avant-garde, such as Dada and surrealism and pop art. The only thing the artist can do is be honest with themselves and make the art they want to make. That's what I've always done.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'