"I've never been didactic, never tried to make poetry do things, never gone out to look for it. I waited for it to come to me, in whatever shape it chose."
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-- Philip Larkin (Paris Review - The Art of Poetry)
"But I did write slowly, partly because you're finding out what to say as well as how to say it, and that takes time."
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"You must realize I've never had "ideas" about poetry. To me it's always been a personal, almost physical release or solution to a complex pressure of needs -- wanting to create, to justify, to praise, to explain, to externalize, depending on the circumstances."
-- Philip Larkin (Paris Review - The Art of Poetry)