Firsts Quotes by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I…

— Theodore Roethke

Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.

— Theodore Roethke

A lively understandable spirit Once entertained you. It will come again. Be still. Wait.

— Theodore Roethke

I came to love, I came into my own.

— Theodore Roethke

I bleed my bones, their marrow to bestowUpon that God who knows what I would know.

— Theodore Roethke

All finite things reveal infinitude: The mountain with its singular bright shade Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, The after-light upon ice-burdened…

— Theodore Roethke

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

— Theodore Roethke

I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing, In my veins, in my bones I feel it,- The small water seeping upward, The tight…

— Theodore Roethke

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

— Theodore Roethke

(I measure time by how a body sways.)

— Theodore Roethke

To follow the drops sliding from a lifting oar, Head up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward...

— Theodore Roethke

Any fool can take a bad line out of a poem; it takes a real pro to throw out a good line.

— Theodore Roethke