Quotes from Theodore Roethke

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.

Be sure that whatever you are is you.

A mind too active is no mind at all.

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.

I have gone into the waste lonely places

My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

What falls away is always. And is near.

The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back; Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.

I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart of form.

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.

Art is our defense against hysteria and death.

What is desire?-- The impulse to make someone else complete? That woman would set sodden straw on fire.

Love is not love until love's vulnerable

I came to love, I came into my own.

All lovers live by longing, and endure; summon a vision and declare it pure