Mary Oliver Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.

  Mary Oliver

  Writing, Wanted

  Mary Oliver (2005). “New and Selected Poems, Volume Two”, Beacon Press (MA)

  31 Copy quote

• And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

  Mary Oliver

  Soul, Care, Looks

  Mary Oliver (1998). “West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems”, p.61, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  13 Copy quote

• Don't we all die someday and someday comes all too soon? What will you do with your own wild, glorious chance at this thing we call life.

  Mary Oliver

  Rainy Day, Chance, Someday

  23 Copy quote

• I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.

  Mary Oliver

  Book, Heart, Character

  Mary Oliver (2016). “Upstream: Selected Essays”, p.14, Penguin

  32 Copy quote

• To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

  Mary Oliver

  Work, Positivity, Attention

  Mary Oliver (2006). “Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays”, p.35, Beacon Press

  18 Copy quote

• Attention without feeling is only a report.

  Mary Oliver

  Feelings, Attention, Reports

  "Listening to the World". Interview with Krista Tippett, onbeing.org. October 15, 2015.

  7 Copy quote

• But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.

  Mary Oliver

  Light, Done, Holiness

  Mary Oliver (2004). “Blue Iris: Poems and Essays”, Beacon Press (MA)

  23 Copy quote

• I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

  Mary Oliver

  Morning, Stars, Dark

  Mary Oliver (2017). “Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”, p.368, Penguin

  30 Copy quote

• It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.

  Mary Oliver

  Heart, Special Education, Break

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

  8 Copy quote

• Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising.

  Mary Oliver

  Dream, Rivers, Forever

  Mary Oliver (2009). “Evidence: Poems”, p.62, Beacon Press

  5 Copy quote

• You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.

  Mary Oliver

  Grace, Serendipity, Luck

  Mary Oliver (2000). “Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems”, p.80, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  23 Copy quote

• When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

  Mary Oliver

  Running, Weed, Rose

  Mary Oliver (2017). “Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”, p.71, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.

  Mary Oliver

  Responsibility, Long, World

  Mary Oliver (2017). “Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”, p.213, Penguin

  14 Copy quote

• I have a little dog who likes to nap with me. He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck. He is sweeter than soap. He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace, which can't even bark.

  Mary Oliver

  Dog, Naps, Necks

  Mary Oliver (2005). “New and Selected Poems, Volume Two”, Beacon Press (MA)

  13 Copy quote

• A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

  Mary Oliver

  Dog, Smell, World

  FaceBook post by Mary Oliver from May 21, 2015

  12 Copy quote

• We can know a lot. And still, no doubt, there are rash and wonderful ideas brewing somewhere; there are many surprises yet to come.

  Mary Oliver

  Ideas, Doubt, Wonderful

  Mary Oliver (1994). “A Poetry Handbook”, p.91, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing or toss havoc shoreward; it can give gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can sweet-talk entirely. As I can too, and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

  Mary Oliver

  Sweet, Lying, Sea

  Mary Oliver (2012). “A Thousand Mornings: Poems”, p.41, Penguin

  14 Copy quote

• Come with me into the woods where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.

  Mary Oliver

  Spring, Forever, Doe

  Mary Oliver (2013). “Dog Songs: Deluxe Edition”, p.30, Penguin

  13 Copy quote

• Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled---to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.

  Mary Oliver

  World, Weight, Want

  Mary Oliver (2013). “New and Selected Poems, Volume One”, p.102, Beacon Press

  16 Copy quote

• We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness.

  Mary Oliver

  Heart, Hunger, Hungry

  Source: balisha-neverenoughtime.blogspot.com

  9 Copy quote

• Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)

  Mary Oliver

  Joy, Crumbs, Made

  9 Copy quote

• Attention is the beginning of devotion.

  Mary Oliver

  Motivational, Attention, Devotion

  Mary Oliver (2016). “Upstream: Selected Essays”, p.11, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

• What I have done is learn to love and learn to be loved. That didn't come easy.

  Mary Oliver

  Done, Easy

  "Maria Shriver Interviews the Famously Private Poet Mary Oliver". www.oprah.com. March 9, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

• It doesn't have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don't try to make them elaborate, this isn't a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.

  Mary Oliver

  Weed, Blue, Voice

  Source: www.chicagotribune.com

  12 Copy quote

• Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dak trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more the prettiness.

  Mary Oliver

  Stars, Fall, Snow

  16 Copy quote

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