Theodore Roethke Quotes

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

There's no glory in climbing a mountain if all you want to do is to get to the top. It's experiencing the climb itself - in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue - that has to be the goal.

It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.

There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same when you get there.

Colorado has always been a good place to find what you're made of.

There's nothing more frightening - and exciting - than getting lost in a forest. There is a journey towards the light, and you've got to go through the dark to get to the light. That's what the forest is all about.

Life is like a mountain: after climbing up one side and sliding down the other, put up the sled.

The tunnels may be long, and twisted, and dark; but you are supposed to go through them.

It is not the path which is the difficulty; rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.

You're at the bottom of the mountain. May you climb up without suffering.

Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. Oh! The places you'll go!

Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: You have to learn the rhythms of respiration - acquire the pace. Otherwise you stop right away.

Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

I'm facing Niagara Falls - the wind and the mist and the dark and the peregrine falcons - and I'm going to stay focused on the other side.

If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.

What appears to be the end of the road may simply be a bend in the road.

When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

It's a long old road, but I know I'm gonna find the end.

I was always interested in the possibility maybe of finding my way into a big adventure.

Every day some new fact comes to light - some new obstacle which threatens the gravest obstruction. I suppose this is the reason which makes the game so well worth playing.

Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.

I've realised that at the top of the mountain, there's another mountain.