Theodore Roethke Quotes

80 quotes in 819 categories

• Time marks us while we are marking time.
• What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
• 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…
• Being, not doing, is my first joy.
• I'm sure I've been a toad, one time or another. With bats, weasels, worms...I rejoice in the kinship. Even the caterpillar I can love, and…
• Wake the happy words.
• Any fool can take a bad line out of a poem; it takes a real pro to throw out a good line.
• A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
• The damage of teaching: the constant contact with the undeveloped.
• Teach as an old fishing guide takes out a beginner.
• O Lord, may I never want to look good. O Jesus, may I always read it all: out loud and the very way it should…
• I can't go on flying apart just for those who want the benefit of a few verbal kicks. My God, do you know what poems…
• Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
• And what a congress of stinks!- Roots ripe as old bait, Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich, Leaf mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks, Nothing would…
• Love begets love. This torment is my joy.
• God bless the roots! Body and soul are one.
• I came to love, I came into my own.
• The soul has many motions, body one.
• The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
• Live in a perpetual great astonishment.

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