Quotes by Muriel Rukeyser

“Dreams are the sources of action the meeting and the end a resting place among the flight of things.”

“Exchange is creation.”

“However confused the scene of our life appears however torn we may be who now do face that scene it can be faced and we can go on to be whole.”

“The universe is made up of stories not of atoms.”

“I think there is a choice possible to us at any moment as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who ta...”

“I hear the singing of the lives of women. The clear mystery the offering the pride.”

“The universe is made of stories not of atoms.”

“Not all things are blest but the seeds of all things are blest.”

“Dreams are the sources of action the meeting and the end a resting place among the flight of things.”

“I speak to you. You speak to me. Is that fragile?”

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”

“These are roads to take when you think of your country and interested bring down the maps again, phoning the statistician, asking the dear friend, reading the papers with morning inquiry.”

“Here is your road, tyingyou to its meanings: gorge, boulder, precipice. Telescoped down, the hard and stone-green river cutting fast and direct into the town.”

“What do you want — a cliff over a city? A foreland, sloped to sea and overgrown with roses? These people live here.”

“This is to be a summary poem of the life of the Atlantic coast of this country, nourished by the communications which run down it. Gauley Bridge is inland, but it was created by theories, systems, ...”

“To be a Jew in the twentieth century Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse, Wishing to be invisible, you choose Death of the spirit, the stone insanity. Accepting, take full life. Full agonies: Yo...”

“The whole and fertile spirit as guarantee For every human freedom, suffering to be free, Daring to live for the impossible.”

“In time of crisis, we summon up our strength. Then, if we are lucky, we are able to call every resource, every forgotten image that can leap to our quickening, every memory that can make us know ou...”

“In this moment when we face horizons and conflicts wider than ever before, we want our resources, the ways of strength. We look again to the human wish, its faiths, the means by which the imaginati...”

“Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling, and what is the use of truth! How do we use feeling? How do we use truth! However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we ...”