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Shedding the carapace we have been building so assiduously on the surface, we must by definition give up exactly what we thought was necessary to protect us from further harm.

David Whyte

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David Whyte
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: September 21
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Poet
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Marrickville
New South Wales
Australia
Giving
Surface
Exactly
Carapace
Necessary
Assiduously
Protect
Shedding
Building
Insecurity
Thought
Definition
Give
Definitions
Must
Harm

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Heartbreak is how we mature... There is almost no path a human being can follow that does not lead to heartbreak.
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Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief turning downward through it s black water to the place we cannot breathe will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins thrown by those who wished for something else.
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Genius is becoming something you were all along.
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The frail, vulnerable sounds of which we are capable seem to be essential to a later ability to roar like a lion without scaring everyone to death.
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When I recite poems onstage, I put myself into the very personal struggle and it grants tremendous perspective. At the same time you get another perspective on the poem you're reciting.
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The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties.
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Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.
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The art form has to do with the mystery and the hidden invitation that's in the room. And that's when the magic happens, that's when the deep silence emerges to the surprise of all the attentively listening ears. In a way, you're following that silence. You go where the silence is deepest.
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A soul-based workplace asks things of me that I didn't even know I had. It's constantly telling me that I belong to something large in the world.
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There is no house like the house of belonging.
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I returned to poetry as a more precise way to describe the world, more precise than science.
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There is a lovely root to the word humiliation - from the latin word humus, meaning soil or ground. When we are humiliated, we are in effect returning to the ground of our being.
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We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again
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A good poem has its own life. It's like bringing a child into the world. You, the poet, birthed the child, but the child will surprise you continually. I think a work of art has its own aliveness, its own future.
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The greatest tragedy is to live out someone else's life thinking it was your own.
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To give generously but appropriately and then, most difficult of all, and as the full apotheosis of the art, with feeling, in the moment and spontaneously, has always been recognized as one of the greatest of human qualities.
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The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
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I believe that human beings are desperate, always, to belong to something larger than themselves.
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Poetry for me has been a long pilgrimage, a journey and a growing relationship with the unknown.
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Absent the edge, we drown in numbness.
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