Muriel Rukeyser

“What three things can never be done?Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone.The hill of glass, the fatal brilliant plain.”

“He said he would be back and we'd drink wine togetherHe said that everything would be better than beforeHe said we were on the edge of a new relationHe said he would never again cringe before his fatherHe said that he was going to invent full-timeHe said he loved me that going into meHe said was going into the world and the skyHe said all the buckles were very firmHe said the wax was the best waxHe said Wait for me here on the beachHe said Just don't cryI remember the gulls and the wavesI remember the islands going dark on the seaI remember the girls laughingI remember they said he only wanted to get away from meI remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets, a trashy lotI remember she told me those who try out inventions are worseI remember she added : Women who love such are the worst of allI have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.I would have liked to try those wings myself.It would have been better than this.”

“The universe is not made of atoms; it's made of stories.”

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

“American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict....We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare”

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

“The fear of poetry is an indication that we are cut off from our own reality.”

“breathe in experience breathe out poetry”

“In all the cities of this yearI have longed for the other city.”

“I think there is choice possible at any moment to us, 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”

“We are against war and the sources of war. We are for poetry and the sources of poetry.”

“As we live our truths, we will communicate across all barriers, speaking for the sources of peace. Peace that is not lack of war, but fierce and positive.”

“Always our wars have been our confessions of weakness”

“No one wants to read poetry. You have to make it impossible for them to put the poem down--impossible for them to stop reading it, word after word. You have to keep them from closing the book.”

“In our time, they say there is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty.”

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

“Whereverwe walkwe will makeWhereverwe protestwe will go plantingMake poemsseed grassfeed a child growingbuild a houseWhatever we stand againstWe will stand feeding and seedingWherever I walkI will make”

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

“If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.”