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How terrible the need for God.

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
God
Terrible
Need
Needs

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
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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.
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I came where the river Ran over stones My ears knew An early joy. And all the waters Of all the streams Sang in my veins That summer day.
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When I go mad, I call my friends by phone: I am afraid they might think they're alone.
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By daily dying, I have come to be.
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Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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.
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The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
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I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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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.
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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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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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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