Theodore Roethke Quotes

Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light.
Theodore Roethke
Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light.
Theodore Roethke
I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke
I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke
(Dreams drain the spirit if we dream too long.)
Theodore Roethke
Love alters all. Unblood my instinct, love.
Theodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Theodore Roethke
The stones were sharp,The wind came at my back;Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
Theodore Roethke
When true love broke my heart in half,I took the whiskey from the shelf,And told my neighbors when to laugh.I keep a dog, and bark myself.
Theodore Roethke
May my silences become more accurate.
Theodore Roethke
I've recovered my tenderness by long looking;I'm a Socrates of small fury.The waves bends with the fish. I'm taughtAs water teaches stone. Believe me, extremest oriole,I can hear light on a dry day.The world is where we fling it; I'm leaving where I am.
Theodore Roethke
Be sure that whatever you are is you.
Theodore Roethke
Self-contemplation is a curseThat makes an old confusion worse.
Theodore Roethke
What grace I have is enough.
Theodore Roethke
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
Theodore Roethke
I learn by going where I have to go
Theodore Roethke
The GeraniumWhen I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,She looked so limp and bedraggled,So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,Or a wizened aster in late September,I brought her back in againFor a new routine -Vitamins, water, and whateverSustenance seemed sensibleAt the time: she'd livedSo long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,Her shriveled petals fallingOn the faded carpet, the staleSteak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)The things she endured!-The dumb dames shrieking half the nightOr the two of us, alone, both seedy,Me breathing booze at her,She leaning out of her pot toward the window.Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me-And that was scary-So when that snuffling cretin of a maidThrew her, pot and all, into the trash-can,I said nothing.But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,I was that lonely.
Theodore Roethke
I trust all joy
Theodore Roethke
The MistakeHe left his pants upon a chair:She was a widow, so she said:But he was apprehended, bare,By one who rose up from the dead.
Theodore Roethke
I learned not to fear infinity,The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,The wheel turning away from itself,The sprawl of the wave,The on-coming water.
Theodore Roethke
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
Theodore Roethke
What is madness but nobility of the soul at odds with circumstance.
Theodore Roethke
My Papa's Waltz:The whiskey on your breathCould make a small boy dizzy;But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easy.We romped until the pansSlid from the kitchen shelf;My mother's countenanceCould not unfrown itself.The hand that held my wristWas battered on one knuckle;At every step you missedMy right ear scraped a buckle.You beat time on my headWith a palm caked hard by dirt,Then waltzed me off to bedStill clinging to your shirt.
Theodore Roethke
What's madness but nobility of soulAt odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!I know the purity of pure despair,My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,That place among the rocks--is it a cave,Or winding path? The edge is what I have............... Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,Keeps buzzing at the sill.~From "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke
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 have to go.
Theodore Roethke
By daily dying, I have come to be.
Theodore Roethke
In a dark time, the eye begins to see.
Theodore Roethke
Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.
Theodore Roethke