109 Quotes by Muriel Rukeyser

The universe of poetry is the universe of emotional truth. Our material is in the way we feel and the way we remember.

How can I look back and not speak of the stupid learning about birth? Of the stupid learning that people make love, and how it seemed the reason for all things, the intimacy of my wondering, the illumination that to an adolescent was the cause for life around me, the reason why the unhappy people I knew did not kill themselves?

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

The process of writing a poem represents work done on the self of the poet, in order to make form.

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

Dreams are the sources of action, the meeting and the end, a resting place among the flight of things.

I think there is a 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.

reality is the completion of experience ...

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