“The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.”

"My Papa's Waltz," ll. 1-4
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy." by Theodore Roethke?
Theodore Roethke photo
Theodore Roethke 86
American poet 1908–1963

Related quotes

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”

Source: Parliament of Whores (1991), pp. xviii-xix.

Fernando Pessoa photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo

“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last. A waltz which you can like only when you are waltzing is a bad waltz.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

"On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952) — in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1967), p. 24

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo

“At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death;
Death could not sever my soul and you,
As these have severed your soul from me.”

Poems and Ballads (1866-89), The Triumph of Time
Context: p>I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew,
You had grown strong as the sun or the sea.
But none shall triumph a whole life through:
For death is one, and the fates are three.
At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death;
Death could not sever my soul and you,
As these have severed your soul from me.You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you,
Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer.
But will it not one day in heaven repent you?
Will they solace you wholly, the days that were?
Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss,
Meet mine, and see where the great love is,
And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you;
The gate is strait; I shall not be there.</p

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
W.C. Fields photo

“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Source: W.C. Fields by Himself

Robert E. Lee photo

Related topics