Quotes About Wonder

Let the world have its way with you, luminous as it is with mystery and pain— graced as it is with the ordinary.

Well, who knows. Who knows what hung, fluttering, at the window between him and the darkness. Anyway, Blake the hosier's son stood up and turned away from the sooty sill and the dark city— turned away forever from the factories, the personal strivings, to a life of the imagination.

What is my name, o what is my name that I may offer it back to the beautiful world? Have I walked long enough where the sea breaks raspingly all day and all night upon the pale sand?

the sunflowers themselves far more wonderful than any words about them.

What is certain in the rational realm is by no means certain in the kingdom of swoon.

This is not just surprise and pleasure. This is not just beauty sometimes too hot to touch. This is not a blessing with a beginning and an end. This is not just a wild summer. This is not conditional.

Stepping out into the world, into the grass, onto the path, was always a kind of relief. I was not escaping anything. I was returning to the arena of delight.

Everyone now and again wonders about those questions that have no ready answers: first cause, God's existence, what happens when the curtain goes down and nothing stops it, not kissing, not going to the mall, not the Super Bowl. Wild roses, I said to them one morning. Do you have the answers? And if you do, would you tell me? The roses laughed softly. Forgive us, they said. But as you can see, we are just now entirely busy being roses.

About God, how could he give up his secrets and still be God?

I stood like Adam in his lonely garden On that first morning, shaken out of sleep, Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves, Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.

I WAKE CLOSE TO MORNING Why do people keep asking to see God's identity papers when the darkness opening into morning is more than enough? Certainly any god might turn away in disgust. Think of Sheba approaching the kingdom of Solomon. Do you think she had to ask, "Is this the place?

Sometimes there's only a hint, a possibility. What's magical, sometimes, has deeper roots than reason. I hope everyone knows that.

I want the poem to ask something and, at its best moments, I want the question to remain unanswered.

standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.

The World I Live In I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. The world I live in and believe in is wider than that. And anyway, what's wrong with Maybe? You wouldn't believe what once or twice I have seen. I'll just tell you this: only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one.

Every year the hatchlings wake in the swaying branches, in the silver baskets, and love the world. Is it necessary to say any more? Have you heard them singing in the wind, above the final fields? Have you ever been so happy in your life?

What's magical, sometimes, has deeper roots than reason. I hope everyone knows that.

how wonderful to be who I am, made out of earth and water, my own thoughts, my own fingerprints—

What does it mean... that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it?

How God, or the gods, are invisible, quite understandable. But holiness is visible, entirely. It's wonderful to walk along like that, thought not the usual intention to reach an answer but merely drifting.

Just where does self-awareness begin and end? With the June bug? With the shining, task-ridden ant? With the little cloud of gnats that drifts over the pond?

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

Why do people keep asking to see God's identity papers when the darkness opening into morning is more than enough? Certainly any god might turn away in disgust. Think of Sheba approaching the kingdom of Solomon. Do you think she had to ask, "Is this the place?

Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many branches, each one like a poem? Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain? Most of the world says no, no, it's not possible. I refuse to think to such a conclusion. Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.