A Quote by Peter S. Beagle

All lives are composed of two basic elements," the squirrel said, "purpose and poetry. By being ourselves, squirrel and raven, we fulfill the first requirement, you in flight and I in my tree. But there is poetry in the meanest of lives, and if we leave it unsought we leave ourselves unrealized. A life without food, without shelter, without love, a life lived in the rain—this is nothing beside a life without poetry.

Peter S. Beagle

Quote Topics

Basic Being Beside Composed Elements First Flight Food Fulfill Leave Life Lived Lives Love Meanest Nothing Ourselves Poetry Purpose Rain Raven Requirement Said Shelter Squirrel Tree Two Without Without Love

Quote Author

Peter S. Beagle
American - Novelist
Born: April 20, 1939

I feel deep gratitude for the life poetry has allowed me to live. I know the life I could have lived without it. Both on the physical plain, and the soul plain. Poetry helps us endure.

Dorianne Laux

One cannot build life from refrigerators, politics, credit statements and crossword puzzles. That is impossible. Nor can one exist for any length of time without poetry, without color, without love.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Every healthy man can do without food for two days — but without poetry, never!

Charles Baudelaire

Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry.

Charles Baudelaire

Without God we are but bruised reeds, ever threatened by the prospect of being crushed by life’s uncaring millstone. Without God we are nothing, our lives worthless, our days an endless circular tread. Without God we stand condemned, doomed to a life without the precious gift of hope.

T. Davis Bunn

To have meaning, our lives require both passion and purpose. A life without passion is like a furnace without fuel, and without purpose, like a ship without a rudder.

Mardy Grothe

When we don't allow ourselves to hope, we don't allow ourselves to have purpose. Without purpose, without meaning, life is dark. We've no light within, and we're just living to die.

Dean Koontz

I want to love you without clutching, appreciate you without judging, join you without invading, invite you without demanding, leave you without guilt, criticize you without blaming, and help you without insulting. If I can have the same from you, then we can truly meet and enrich each other.

Virginia Satir

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

Anne Stevenson

Boredom!!! Shooting!!! Shelling!!! People being killed!!! Despair!!! Hunger!!! Misery!!! Fear!!! That's my life! The life of an innocent eleven-year-old schoolgirl!! A schoolgirl without a school, without the fun and excitement of school. A child without games, without friends, without the sun, without birds, without nature, without fruit, without chocolate or sweets, with just a little powdered milk. In short, a child without a childhood.

Zlata Filipovic

Muscles without strength, friendship without trust, opinion without risk, change without aesthetics, age without values, food without nourishment, power without fairness, facts without rigor, degrees without erudition, militarism without fortitude, progress without civilization, complication without depth, fluency without content; these are the sins to remember.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Without love I mean nothing to you Without love broken in two Without love give me some value some worth Without love no life left on earth.

Donna Lewis

We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks. . . . He may live without books,-what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope,-what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love,-what is passion but pining? But where is the man that can live without dining?