Experience is the only process that can de-alienate information*

Philip Larkin - A Study Of Reading Habits
When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the old right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.

Later, with inch-thick specs,
Evil was just my lark:
Me and my coat and fangs
Had ripping times in the dark.
The women I clubbed with sex!
I broke them up like meringues.

Don't read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who's yellow and keeps the store
Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.
*Jaron Lanier, You are not a Gadget: A Manifesto

Another sign of my lack of imagination

from here

Larkin's life was a failure; his work was a triumph. That is all that matters. Because the work, unlike the life, lives on.

Martin Amis on Philip Larkin's women

I don't see how this view is possible without an idea of an afterlife I don't have. Life is all that matters.

Related: ...

This be the day

A more attractive man would have had another life

My life is as simple as I can make it. Work all day, cook, eat, wash up, telephone, hack writing, drink, television in the evenings. I almost never go out. I suppose everyone tries to ignore the passing of time—some people by doing a lot, being in California one year and Japan the next. Or there’s my way—making every day and every year exactly the same. Probably neither works.

Philip Larkin, here

The above is from a good site that pulls quotes on the daily routines of writers and artists.