“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.”

— Philip Larkin

Source: Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "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." by Philip Larkin?

Philip Larkin 42

English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian 1922–1985

Related quotes

“That's the funny thing about arriving somewhere, Vin. Once you're there, the only thing you can really do is leave again”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Kelsier, Chapter 13
Source: Mistborn: The Final Empire (2006)

“I learned three things in Zurich during the war. I wrote them down. Firstly, you're either a revolutionary or you're not, and if you're not you might as well be an artist as anything else. Secondly, if you can't be an artist, you might as well be a revolutionary. … I forget the third thing.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Carr, Act II.
Travesties (1974)

“I feel passionate about things. And I feel things deeply, and that's always the way I've been taught, right from the beginning, that the deeper you feel something the better the acting….. and then it's also the person you're playing. If you're playing someone who's upset or yelling, that's what you gotta do. That's the job.”

Ray Liotta (1954) American actor

As quoted in "Tribeca Film Festival Interview: Ray Liotta Takes a Rare Comedic Turn in Snowmen" by Cynthia Ellis at Huffington Post (26 April 2010)

“Here's what I can tell you about Don Rumsfeld. You're never going to get any credit. And you'll only know how well you're doing if he gives you more work. If that happens, you're doing fine.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Quoted in Bob Woodward's, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, Simon & Schuster, 2006
2000s, 2006

“You can either look at your career as the things you're going to leave behind, and they have to be executed flawlessly and you have to know exactly what it is that you're doing. Or you can be realistic about the fact that you're going to learn as you practice what you do.”

David Fincher (1962) American film director

About the film, The Social Network
The Curious Case of David Fincher (2007)

“As an artist, you're never happy with anything you do. It's part of the process. You're never really happy. I'm certainly not. That's a good thing. It means you're always striving to do better. You hope the next piece will be better.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Source: As quoted in "In conversation with Kate Bush" by Elio Iannacci in MacLeans (28 November 2016) https://www.macleans.ca/culture/arts/in-conversation-with-kate-bush/