“Dreamt last night of Philip Larkin. He and I appeared to be looking over some subterranean mediaeval archaeological excavations.”
Anthony Powell, 22 April 1991

#anthonypowell #philiplarkin

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
Charlotte Brontë, born 21 April 1816

#charlottebronte

“Such joy a hundred times a day was mine
To see at every bend of the road the face
Of Nature different. And oft I sat
To hear the lark from his first twitter pass
To greater things as he soared nearer heaven;
Or to the throstle, singing nearer home.”
W.H. Davies, b. 20 April 1871

“I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remained of those who had died with them. Is not this odd? They go the very first things in youth and yet last the longest in the dust.”
Lord #Byron , died 19 April 1824

“Made a low circular mount round the great oak in the mead, & Turfed it.
Sowed more China-asters on the end of the Cantelupe-bed.
Perfect summer.”
Gilbert White, 18 April 1761

#gilbertwhite #selborne #gardening

“Beside the window the bed;
the afternoon sun used to touch half of it.

. . . One afternoon at four o’clock we separated
for a week only. . . And then—
that week became forever.”
C.F Cavafy, born 17 April 1863

#cavafy #poem

“Today I am 34, a dull thing to consider. How little done, Oh Lord, & how much gone through? How many changes, how many failures? Is it fate, is it fault? Will it end, or must it end me? A bad cold on my chest with pain therein these 3 days.”
Ford Madox Brown, 16 April 1855

“Live all you can: it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven’t had that, what have you had?”
Henry James, born 15 April 1843

#henryjames

“What a buggers’ banquet Eng. Lit. was between the wars – Christopher, Wystan, Stephen, John Lehmann, Ackerley, Morgan Forster, Strachey, etc. all busily swapping tales about each other when they weren’t actually swapping boyfriends.”
Kenneth #Tynan , 14 April 1977

#LGBTQ

“All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.”
Seamus Heaney, born 13 April 1939

#seamusheaney #poem #FatherAndSon

“I am turning against Winston Churchill whom, in my heart, I have never liked or admired. He defeated the Nazis but I fear that he was hoodwinked by the Russians.”
Chips Channon, 12 April 1948

#churchill #chipschannon

“Let Andrew rejoice with the Whale, who is array’d in beauteous blue and is a combination of bulk and activity.
For they work me with their harping-irons, which is a barbarous instrument, because I am more unguarded than others.”
Christopher Smart, born 11 April 1722
#poem

“Words are the only things that last forever; they are more durable than the eternal hills”
William Hazlitt, born 10 April 1788

#hazlitt

“ ...the dead
Returning lightly dance:
Whatever the road bring
To me or take from me,
They keep me company
With their pattering,
Crowding the solitude
Of the loops over the downs,
Hushing the roar of towns
And their brief multitude.”
Edward Thomas, k.i.a. 9 April 1917

“Walked to Chathill Station: a cartwheel, a rainbow, new boots, and at Chathill the sailor boy who had been catching crabs. A very happy day indeed.”
E.M. Forster, 8 April 1904

#emforster

“—Was it for this
That one, the fairest of all Rivers, lov’d
To blend his murmurs with my Nurse’s song,
And from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That flow’d along my dreams?”
William #Wordsworth , born 7 April 1770

“I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.”
Igor #Stravinsky , died 6 April 1971

“When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain…”
Algernon Charles Swinburne, born 5 April 1837

#swinburne #poem

*“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, and more wise when he had.”
Samuel Johnson on Oliver Goldsmith, who died 4 April 1774

#olivergoldsmith #samueljohnson

“I made a posy, while the day ran by:
“Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band.”
But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.”
George Herbert, born 3 April 1593