Muriel Rukeyser Quotes

"Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry."

"Flight is intolerable contradiction."

"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."

"I hear the singing of the lives of women. They clear mystery, the offering, and pride."

"I think there is 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 talk about sacrifice."

"In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty."

"Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest.The blessing is in the seed."

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."