The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
Muriel RukeyserRead
The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that poetry originates from a deep inner desire for wholeness and fulfillment.
Muriel Rukeyser suggests that the essence of poetry comes from a profound inner yearning for completeness. It reflects the idea that poetry is not merely an art form but a manifestation of the human spirit striving for connection, understanding, and a sense of entirety in life.
In practice
A speaker at a poetry reading could use this quote to highlight the emotional depth of the works being presented.
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them.
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 town of Gauley Bridge stands as a pattern for all those places where people are linked even in the middle of their suffering, where people fight against an evil condition so that other people need not go through the same fight.
Always our wars have been our confessions of weakness
In fiction, you know, there are no borders. You can go anywhere.
I never want to make the kind of film whose impact ends when the audience leaves the cinema.
That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that writing is the best thing that ever happened to him, or could ever happen to him, because as far as he is concerned, writing is the best possible way of life, never mind the social, political, or financial rewards of what he might achieve through it.
The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture βThis is a pipeβ, I'd have been lying!
To sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings/Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun/For my mean Pen are too superior things.
All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!
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