“I am the King. I tell. I am not told. I am the verb, sir. I am not the object. (King George III)”

“...But what is it all about, what am I trying to do, is there a message? Nobody knows, and I certainly don't. If one could answer these questions in any other way than by writing what one has written, then there would be no point in writing at all.”

“HEADMASTER: I was a geographer. I went to Hull.IRWIN: Oh. Larkin.HEADMASTER: Everybody says that. 'Hull? Oh, Larkin.' I don't know about the poetry...as I say, I was a geographer...but as a librarian he was pitiless. The Himmler of the Accessions Desk. And now, we're told, women in droves. Art. They get away with murder.”

“Since I am never alone with myself. Since I am always watching the character playing my part in the scene, there is no possibility of spontaneity.”

“All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.”

“The more I see of the world, the less inclined I am to think well of it.”

“I have to seem like a human being all the time, but I seldom have to be one. I have people to do that for me.”