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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?

— Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)

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More quotes by Muriel Rukeyser

The meanings of poetry take their growth through the interaction of the images and the music of the poem.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

Moment to moment, we can grow, if we can bring ourselves to meet the moment with our lives.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

The poetic image is not a static thing. It lives in time, as does the poem.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

The cutting of films is a parable in the motion of any art that lives in time, as well as a parable in the ethics of communication.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

Belief has its structures, and its symbols change. Its tradition changes. All the relationships within these forms are inter-dependent.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Muriel Rukeyser (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.