Top 15 Muriel Rukeyser Quotes

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

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

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.

breathe in experience breathe out poetry

The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.

Always our wars have been our confessions of weakness

I am working out the vocabulary of my silence.

When I am dead, even then,
I will still love you, I will wait in these poems,
When I am dead, even then
I am still listening to you.

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

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

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

Wherever
we walk
we will make

Wherever
we protest
we will go planting

Make poems
seed grass
feed a child growing
build a house
Whatever we stand against
We will stand feeding and seeding

Wherever
I walk
I will make

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

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.

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