A Quote by Philip Larkin

It becomes still more difficult to find?Words at once true and kind,?Or not untrue and not unkind. — © Philip Larkin
It becomes still more difficult to find?Words at once true and kind,?Or not untrue and not unkind.
A will to be unkind is like a sickness. It can be healed or driven out. But to be unkind because you are thoughtless is the worst kind of blindness: difficult to cure, because you cannot see the fault even as you commit it.
Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.
A strange thing, words. Once they're said, it's hard to imagine they're untrue.
I'm from Toronto. It's a lot more laid back. When you are thrust into different environments, there is an odd adaptation period. And then there are times when unfair, unkind, untrue things are written about you. That bothers me less now.
I am thankful that thus far today I have not had any unkind thoughts or said any harsh words or done anything that I regret. However, now I need to get out of bed and so things may become more difficult.
I think any kind of comic sequence is as easy and as difficult as it is written. So, if it is written well, then it becomes easy. Sometimes you find it difficult because the humour is not coming out.
I can understand that there are those who can think and imagine the world without words, but I think that once you find the words that name your experience, then suddenly that experience becomes grounded, and you can use it and you can try to understand it.
Kind words cost no more than unkind ones . . . and we may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindliness around us at so little expense. If you would fall into any extreme let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists vigor and yields to softness.
One thing that I'm really interested in is the kind of esoteric detail that surrounds these great figures. And Wikipedia is full of that kind of stuff, whether it's true or untrue. It staggers me: why, in the short space assigned to a person or an event, that kind of random information is there. To be honest, that's wonderful fuel for songwriting.
The job of the architect becomes more difficult in this secular age. Where once he had a god to extol, he now has humans like himself; where once he had "he," he now has "she" and "they.
True art means if it helps you to become silent, still, joyous; if it gives you a celebration, if it makes you dance—whether anybody participates with you or not is irrelevant. If it becomes a bridge between you and God, that is true art. If it becomes a meditation, that is true art. If you become absorbed in it, so utterly absorbed that the ego disappears, that is true art.
You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.
I used to have a short temper. I still have one and when I lose it, it's bad. I think it comes from what you see when you're young. Sometimes it builds from being scared as well. Once you lose it once, you find comfort in losing your temper. It becomes embedded in you.
It's impossible to put into words. When you see that trophy coming towards you in the hands of the officials... the gold becomes more gold, becomes more shiny than you ever thought. You feel the best in the world. I have no other way to put it into words.
Yet, isn't it strange, isn't it weird, how we can KNOW that someone is not behaving in the way we imagine, and at the same time we can be totally convinced that he is! How clever the human mind is, that it can accept two contradictory things as 'facts.' Yes, I know that in this case one 'fact' was untrue. But the human mind can KNOW something is untrue and still accept it as a 'fact,' and act on it as if it were true.
I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.
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