"Here silence stands
Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken,
Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken,
Luminously-peopled air ascends;
And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach."

- Philip Larkin

35. There is not a single bad mood that cannot be lifted, however grudgingly, by reading a Larkin poem.

36. I did some home-schooling once. It is possible to teach the entire 20th-century social history of Britain from Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings.

Ian Martin (utter genius)

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