Quote

Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.

Theodore Roethke

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Small
Give
Nothing
Giving
Dirt
Even
Breathing
Would
Breath
Life
Breaths
Keeps

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

Image
Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
Theodore Roethke
Image
By daily dying, I have come to be.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
Theodore Roethke
Image
I came to love, I came into my own.
Theodore Roethke
Image
So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
Theodore Roethke
Image
What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
Theodore Roethke
Image
Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still calledThe flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollowsAnd love, love sang toward.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
Theodore Roethke
Image
And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,Will turn its private substance into green,And young shoots spread upon our inner world.
Theodore Roethke
Image
I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
Theodore Roethke
Image
A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Let others probe the mystery if they can.Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will -The right thing happens to the happy man.
Theodore Roethke
Image
What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
Image
When I go mad, I call my friends by phone: I am afraid they might think they're alone.
Theodore Roethke
Image
A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominableYet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,The burning lake turns into a forest pool,The fire subsides into rings of water,A sunlit silence.
Theodore Roethke
Image
In this place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
Theodore Roethke
Image
I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Theodore Roethke
Image
And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
Theodore Roethke