Mary Zimmerman Quotes

It has been said that the myth is a public dream, dreams are private myths. Unfortunately we give our mythic side scant attention these days. As a result, a great deal escapes us and we no longer understand our own actions. So it remains important and salutary to speak not only of the rational and easily understood, but also of enigmatic things: the irrational and the ambiguous. To speak both privately and publicly.

A: The soul wanders in the dark, until it finds love. And so, wherever our love goes, there we find our soul. Q: It always happens? A: If we're lucky. And if we let ourselves be blind. Q: Instead of watching out? A: Instead of always watching out.

I'm drawn to very large texts that are mammothly popular in different parts of the world but are almost unknown here [the USA]. They're safe bets; if they've been around for 2,000 years, there's a reason. It's often a title or just a phrase within the text that will compel me to adapt it.

Let me die the moment my love dies. Let me not outlive my own capacity to love. Let me die still loving, and so, never die.

I've always loved fairy tales. I think they perhaps led me to theater rather than the other way around. As a child I wanted to invent a machine that could record my dreams, so I could watch them in the morning; or hire someone to draw the things I had in my head, because I knew I didn't have the skill to do it myself. Theater is that machine. I can make these images come to life and actually walk around inside them for a while.

The soul wanders in the dark, until it finds love. And so, wherever our love goes, there we find our soul.

Let me die still loving, and so, never die.