Mary Oliver Quotes - Page 11

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• Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

  Mary Oliver

  Humble, Cherish, Heaviness

  Mary Oliver (2013). “New and Selected Poems, Volume One”, p.32, Beacon Press

  6 Copy quote

• And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild—they are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.

  Mary Oliver

  Summer, Thoughtful, Ideas

  8 Copy quote

• I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing one used to be. It's impossible not to remember wild an want it back.

  Mary Oliver

  Trying, Break Out, Want

  Mary Oliver (2012). “A Thousand Mornings: Poems”, p.33, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing.

  Mary Oliver

  Dog, Book, Fate

  Mary Oliver (2016). “Upstream: Selected Essays”, p.17, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.

  Mary Oliver

  Heart, Wish, Trying

  Mary Oliver (2008). “Red Bird: Poems”, p.39, Beacon Press

  5 Copy quote

• I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings.

  Mary Oliver

  Reading, Writing, Years

  4 Copy quote

• I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life.

  Mary Oliver

  Prayer, Thinking, Interesting

  7 Copy quote

• The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever from, One or Two Things

  Mary Oliver

  Wise, Dog, Two

  Mary Oliver (2014). “Dream Work”, p.37, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

• Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine cone You never know What opportunity Is going to travel to you, Or through you. Once a friend gave me A small pine cone- One of a few He found in the scat Of a grizzly In Utah maybe, Or Wyoming. I took it home And did what I supposed He was sure I would do- I ate it, Thinking How it had traveled Through that rough And holy body. It was crisp and sweet. It was almost a prayer Without words. My gratitude, Tom Dancer, For this gift of the world I adore so much And want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear

  Mary Oliver

  Gratitude, Sweet, Prayer

  4 Copy quote

• Poetry is a life-cherishing force.

  Mary Oliver

  Cherish, Force, Poetry Is

  Mary Oliver (1994). “A Poetry Handbook”, p.122, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents.

  Mary Oliver

  Adjectives And Adverbs, Fifty, Cents

  Mary Oliver (1994). “A Poetry Handbook”, p.90, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  14 Copy quote

• We do not love anything more deeply than we love a story.

  Mary Oliver

  Stories

  4 Copy quote

• I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.

  Mary Oliver

  Powerful, Writing, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Oh, yesterday, that one, we all cry out. Oh, that one! How rich and possible everything was! How ripe, ready, lavish, and filled with excitement--how hopeful we were on those summer days, under the clean, white racing clouds. Oh, yesterday!

  Mary Oliver

  Summer, White, Yesterday

  Mary Oliver (2000). “Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems”, p.28, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Everybody has to have their little tooth of power. Everybody wants to be able to bite.

  Mary Oliver

  Power, Teeth, Want

  Mary Oliver (1995). “Blue Pastures”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.

  Mary Oliver

  Jesus, Moose, Faces

  Mary Oliver (2013). “New and Selected Poems, Volume One”, p.74, Beacon Press

  5 Copy quote

• For some things there are no wrong seasons. Which is what I dream of for me.

  Mary Oliver

  Dream, Seasons

  Mary Oliver (2012). “A Thousand Mornings: Poems”, p.19, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.

  Mary Oliver

  Writing, Thinking, Use

  Interview with Maria Shriver, www.oprah.com. March 9, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• The language of the poem is the language of particulars.

  Mary Oliver

  Language

  4 Copy quote

• I know death is the fascinating snake under the leaves, sliding and sliding; I know the heart loves him too, can't turn away, can't break the spell. Everything wants to enter the slow thickness, aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost. Wants to be stone.

  Mary Oliver

  Death, Heart, Snakes

  Mary Oliver (1986). “Dream Work”, p.32, Atlantic Monthly Press

  4 Copy quote

• I took one look and fell, hook and tumble.

  Mary Oliver

  Looks, Hook

  4 Copy quote

• People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

  Mary Oliver

  People, Needs, Want

  4 Copy quote

• And now I understand something so frightening &wonderful- how the mind clings to the road it knows, rushing through crossroads, sticking like lint to the familiar.

  Mary Oliver

  Rushing, Mind, Wonderful

  24 Copy quote

• If I've done my work well, I vanish completely from the scene. I believe it is invasive of the work when you know too much about the writer.

  Mary Oliver

  Believe, Done, Too Much

  4 Copy quote

• Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty.

  Mary Oliver

  Children, Growing Up, Play

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