“The poet Marianne Moore famously wrote of 'real toads in imaginary gardens,' and the labyrinth offers us the possibility of being real creatures in symbolic space...In such spaces as the labyrinth we cross over [between real and imaginary spaces]; we are really travelling, even if the destination is only symbolic.”

Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit - “The poet Marianne Moore famously wrote...” 1

Similar quotes

“[Marianne Moore's definition of genuine poetry] -- Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”

Marianne Moore
Read more

“...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination" --above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we have it.”

Marianne Moore
Read more

“A labyrinth is a symbolic journey . . . but it is a map we can really walk on, blurring the difference between map and world.”

Rebecca Solnit
Read more

“Books are like magic carpets, taking us to places real and imaginary that we never thought possible.”

Bette A. Stevens
Read more

“The sun symbolizes the Divine intelligence; the empty vastness of space symbolizes the Divine All-Possibility and also the Divine immutability; a bird symbolizes the soul; a tree symbolizes the grades of being; and water symbolizes knowledge and rain revelation.”

Osman Bakar
Read more