Quote

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.

David Whyte

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Think
Surprise
Thinking
Poet
Life
Child
Like
Future
Birthed
World
Art
Aliveness
Children
Continually
Work
Bringing
Good
Poem

More quotes by David Whyte

Image
Art is the act of triggering deep memories, of what it means to be fully human.
David Whyte
Image
I believe that human beings are desperate, always, to belong to something larger than themselves.
David Whyte
Image
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat. I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.
David Whyte
Image
The greatest tragedy is to live out someone else's life thinking it was your own.
David Whyte
Image
The courageous conversation is the one you don't want to have.
David Whyte
Image
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.
David Whyte
Image
Poetry is a break for freedom.
David Whyte
Image
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.
David Whyte
Image
Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.
David Whyte
Image
and how we are all preparing for that abrupt waking, and that calling, and that moment we have to say yes, except it will not come so grandly, so Biblically, but more subtly and intimately in the face of the one you know you have to love
David Whyte
Image
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love.
David Whyte
Image
A real conversation always contains an invitation. You are inviting another person to reveal herself or himself to you, to tell you who they are or what they want.
David Whyte
Image
I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living falling toward the center of your longing.
David Whyte
Image
The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
David Whyte
Image
To have a firm persuasion in our work - to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time - is one of the great triumphs of human existence.
David Whyte
Image
Poetry for me has been a long pilgrimage, a journey and a growing relationship with the unknown.
David Whyte
Image
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.
David Whyte
Image
The severest test of work today, is not of our strategies, but of our imaginations and identities.
David Whyte
Image
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.
David Whyte
Image
Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.
David Whyte