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Being, not doing, is my first joy.

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
Joy
Firsts
First

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
Theodore Roethke
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Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm! The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil All things unholy, marred by curse, The ugly of the universe.
Theodore Roethke
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I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swamplandDisturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,By pulling off flesh from the living planetAs if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
Theodore Roethke
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
Theodore Roethke
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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
Theodore Roethke
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
Theodore Roethke
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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
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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
Theodore Roethke
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
Theodore Roethke
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I have gone into the waste lonely places
Theodore Roethke
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
Theodore Roethke
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I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
Theodore Roethke
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The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
Theodore Roethke
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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
Theodore Roethke
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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
Theodore Roethke
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The indignity of it!- With everything blooming above me, Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses, Whole fields lovely and inviolate,- Me down in the fetor of weeds, Crawling on all fours, Alive, in a slippery grave.
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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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