Writer: I don't know whether you've ever looked into a miner's eyes - for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you've ever seen. I think perhaps that's why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.

Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.

Writer: What, above all, I'm primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality. If I had to sum up my work, that's it, really. I'm taking …

Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages - just don't catch him at breakfast. Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out…

As all the perfumes of the vanished day Rise from the earth still moistened with the dew So from my chastened soul beneath thy ray Old love is born anew.

Ce qui fait le poete, n'est-ce pas l'amour, la recherche desesperee du moindre rayon de soleil d'autrefois jouant sur le parquet d'une chambre d'enfant?

The pennycandystore beyond the El is where I first fell in love with unreality