Theodore Roethke Quotes

Nothing Would Give Up Life: Even The Dirt Keeps Breathing A Small Breath.

You Must Believe A Poem Is A Holy Thing, A Good Poem, That Is.

Too Much Reality Can Be A Dazzle, A Surfeit;too Close Immediacy An Exhaustion

And What A Congress Of Stinks!- Roots Ripe As Old Bait, Pulpy Stems, Rank, Silo-rich, Leaf Mold, Manure, Lime, Piled Against Slippery Planks, Nothing Would Give Up Life: Even The Dirt Kept Breathing A Small Breath.

In Our Age, If A Boy Or Girl Is Untalented, The Odds Are In Favor Of Their Thinking They Want To Write.

I'm Sure I've Been A Toad, One Time Or Another. With Bats, Weasels, Worms...i Rejoice In The Kinship. Even The Caterpillar I Can Love, And The Various Vermin.

The Light Comes Brighter From The East; The Cawof Restive Crows Is Sharper On The Ear.

I Always Felt Mean, Jogging Back Over The Logging Road,as If I Had Broken The Natural Order Of Things In That Swampland;disturbed Some Rhythm, Old And Of Vast Importance,by Pulling Off Flesh From The Living Planet;as If I Had Committed, Against The Whole Scheme Of Life, A Desecration.

Being, Not Doing, Is My First Joy.

So Much Of Adolescence Is An Ill-defined Dying, An Intolerable Waiting, A Longing For Another Place And Time, Another Condition.

The Living All Assemble! What's The Cue?-- Do What The Clumsy Partner Wants To Do!

Let Others Probe The Mystery If They Can.time-harried Prisoners Of Shall And Will -the Right Thing Happens To The Happy Man.