He allegedly declined the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1968 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to literature.
He accepted the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1975 Queen's Birthday Honours List and the Companion of Honour (CH) in the 1985 Queen's Birthday Honours List but declined the Laureateship in 1984 for his services to literature.
One of several literary figures name-checked in the song "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" by Nick Cave : 'Philip Larkin he stuck it out in a library in Hull / And Dylan Thomas, he died drunk in St Vincent's Hospital'.