Mary Oliver Quotes
Mary Oliver Quotes
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.
2521 To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
3910 I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.
2806 You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.
2330 It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.
2900 I feel the terror of idleness,
like a red thirst.
Death isn't just an idea.
1210 Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
2422 to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go
2171 I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
3939 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.
1713 Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
2794 The Uses Of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
3451 the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own
2458 I Go Down To The Shore
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall -
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.
2468 I know many lives worth living.
1446 The Old Poets Of China
Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
3184 Sometimes I dream
that everything in the world is here, in my room,
in a great closet, named and orderly,
and I am here too, in front of it,
hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness -
and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing;
and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.
4848 So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.
4540 Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
1477 And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire -
clearly I'm not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
-from The Buddha's Last Instruction
2419 When
When it’s over, it’s over, and we don’t know
any of us, what happens then.
So I try not to miss anything.
I think, in my whole life, I have never missed
The full moon
or the slipper of its coming back.
Or, a kiss.
Well, yes, especially a kiss.
4076 Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving
1411 How heron comes
It is a negligence of the mind
not to notice how at dusk
heron comes to the pond and
stands there in his death robes, perfect
servant of the system, hungry, his eyes
full of attention, his wings
pure light
1514 Things take the time they take.
Don't worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?
2941 The resurrection of the morning.
The mystery of the night.
The hummingbird's wings.
The excitement of thunder.
The rainbow in the waterfall.
Wild mustard, that rough blaze of the fields.
4925 Of course I am thinking the Lord was once young and will never in fact be old.
And who else could this be, who goes off down the green path,
Carrying his sandals, and singing?
4321 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.
4619 And now you'll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won't be false, and they won't be true
but they'll be real
2585 Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
2428 The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.
While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.
1960 ...because my life without you would be
a place of parched and broken trees...
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