I can't imagine ever writing anything of any kind on a machine. I never tried to write either poetry or prose on a typewriter. I like to do it on useless paper, scrap paper, because it's of no importance.
W. S. MerwinRead
I say to my breath once again, little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can, for I am an abyss that I am trying to cross.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the struggle of navigating through deep emotional or existential challenges.
W. S. Merwin's quote speaks to the profound journey of confronting one's own inner depths and the emotional weight one carries. The imagery of breathing and rowing suggests a need for calm and direction as one attempts to traverse the abyss of their thoughts and feelings, emphasizing the importance of finding peace and purpose amidst turmoil.
Themes
BreathAbyssCrossingStruggleExistence
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used during a meditation session to emphasize the importance of breathing through challenges.
More from W. S. Merwin
All quotes βI think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time.
W. S. MerwinRead
The kind of writing that matters most to me is something you don't learn about. It's constantly coming out of what I don't know rather than what I do know.
W. S. MerwinRead
Through all of youth I was looking for you_x000D_ without knowing what I was looking for_x000D_ part memory part distance remaining _x000D_ mine in the ways that I learn to miss you_x000D_ from what we cannot hold the stars are made.
W. S. MerwinRead
What I really believe is the only hopeful relation between our life and the whole of life is one of reverence and respect and of feeling at one with it. The other attitude which is the one our society is based on is devastating and it is killing the earth and it is killing us too.
W. S. MerwinRead
I go five steps in the garden, and I immediately lose track of time... it is a kind of joy in being alive in being in the world. I always found that in the garden. That is what it means to me.
W. S. MerwinRead
Similar quotes
The Great Seal was an early proclamation of 'humanitarian intervention,' to use the currently fashionable phrase.
Noam ChomskyRead
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
Gore VidalRead
It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky.
Muriel SparkRead
To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody in this life can reach to feeling immortal.
John BergerRead
As the eldest son of an Alabama sharecropper family, I was constantly troubled by a collage of North American southern behaviors and notions in reference to the inhumanity of people. There were questions that I did not know how to ask but could, in my young, unsophisticated way, articulate a series of answers.
John Henrik ClarkeRead
We don't stop talking about how the world might be better just because we have no chance of making it to Prime Minister. We are all politicians. We are all artists. In an open society everything the mind and hands can achieve is our birthright. It is up to us to claim it.
Stephen FryRead