Quotes from David Whyte

I returned to poetry as a more precise way to describe the world, more precise than science.

Poetry is the art of overhearing ourselves say things from which it is impossible to retreat.

Poetry is a break for freedom.

Poetry gives us courage and sets us straight with the world. Poems are great companions and friends.

Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.

Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.

The thing about great poetry is we have no defenses against it.

The moment you've uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you're already turning towards home.

Honesty is reached through the doorway of grief and loss.

The outlaw is the radical, the one close to the roots of existence. The one who refuses to forget their humanity and, in remembering, helps everyone else remember, too.

The antidote to exhaustion isn't rest. It's wholeheartedness.

You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds Except the one in which you belong.

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.

What you plan is too small for you to live.

What we strive for in perfection is not what turns us into the lit angel we desire what disturbs and then nourishes has everything we need.

Being a good parent will necessarily break our hearts as we watch a child grow and eventually choose their own way, even through many of the same heartbreaks we have traversed.

The great poems are not about experience, but are the experience itself, felt in the body.

Everyone casts a shadow. Everyone has a relationship with the fearful unknown.

Poetry for me has been a long pilgrimage, a journey and a growing relationship with the unknown.

Poetry is language against which you have no defenses.

Therefore, at any time of life, follow your own questions; don't mistake other people's questions for your own.

No matter the self-conceited importance of our labors we are all compost for worlds we cannot yet imagine.

Jane Austen never did marry. Why doesthat statement call for such reflexive pity? It carries a diferent meaning if we follow it up: Jane Austen never did marry, and therefore she was given the time and perspective to produce books as well-written as those by anyone who ever lived." -David Whyte

Beauty is the harvest of presence.