Life has a practice of living you, if you don’t live it.

Meaning of the quote

Life has a way of controlling you and making decisions for you if you don't take charge of your own life. This quote suggests that if you don't actively live your life and make your own choices, life will just happen to you, and you won't be in control of your own destiny. It's a reminder to be proactive and make the most of the life you have, rather than letting life simply happen to you.

About Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin was an acclaimed English poet, novelist, and librarian who published several influential collections of poetry, including ‘The Less Deceived’ and ‘The Whitsun Weddings’. Despite his reserved public persona, Larkin’s work is renowned for its honest and poignant reflections on everyday life, relationships, and the human experience.

More about the author

More quotes from Philip Larkin

Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any-after all, most people are unhappy, don’t you think?

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

You can’t put off being young until you retire.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

Life has a practice of living you, if you don’t live it.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

In everyone there sleeps. A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make. By loving others, but across most it sweeps. As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

They say eyes clear with age.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

I can’t understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It’s like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

I wouldn’t mind seeing China if I could come back the same day.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)

Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, and don’t have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin

English writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)