Quote

Live in a perpetual great astonishment.

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
Great
Astonishment
Perpetual
Live

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

Image
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
Image
What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
Theodore Roethke
Image
What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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
I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
Theodore Roethke
Image
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
Theodore Roethke
Image
The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
Theodore Roethke
Image
How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
Theodore Roethke
Image
And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
Theodore Roethke
Image
What have I done, dear God, to deserve this perpetual feeling that I'm almost ready to begin something really new?
Theodore Roethke
Image
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
Image
Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
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
All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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
Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
Theodore Roethke