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

Theodore Roethke

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

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
Theodore Roethke
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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.
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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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I learn by going where I have to go.
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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
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You must believe: a poem is a holy thing - a good poem, that is. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.
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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
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What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
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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
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
Theodore Roethke
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So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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The fields stretch out in long unbroken rows. We walk aware of what is far and close. Here distance is familiar as a friend. The feud we kept with space comes to an end.
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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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How terrible the need for God.
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I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
Theodore Roethke
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Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
Theodore Roethke
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In a dark time, the eye begins to see / I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
Theodore Roethke