Mary Oliver Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination...”
-- Mary Oliver -
“We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
-- Mary OliverSource : Willie Morris (1970). “North toward home”, Yoknapatawpha Pr
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“I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.”
-- Mary Oliver -
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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
-- Mary OliverSource : FaceBook post by Mary Oliver from Mar 17, 2017
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“There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“You have to be in the world to understand what the spiritual is about, and you have to be spiritual in order to truly be able to accept what the world is about.”
-- Mary OliverSource : Source: balisha-neverenoughtime.blogspot.com
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“Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“I want to be braver and more honest about my life. When you're sexually abused, there's a lot of damage.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?”
-- Mary OliverSource : Mary Oliver (2013). “Dog Songs: Deluxe Edition”, p.63, Penguin
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“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
-- Mary OliverSource : Mary Oliver (2009). “Evidence: Poems”, p.43, Beacon Press
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“Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“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 -
“And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
-- Mary Oliver -
“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 -
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“Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety – best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light – good morning, good morning, good morning. Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
-- Mary Oliver -
“Every day I walk out into the world / to be dazzled, then to be reflective.”
-- Mary OliverSource : Mary Oliver (2006). “Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays”, p.67, Beacon Press
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“it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.”
-- Mary OliverSource : Mary Oliver (2008). “Red Bird: Poems”, p.28, Beacon Press
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“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.”
-- Mary OliverSource : Mary Oliver (2017). “Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”, p.68, Penguin
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“maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us--”
-- Mary Oliver -
“...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.”
-- Mary Oliver -
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“I simply do not distinguish between work and play.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“Rhythm is one of the most powerful of pleasures, and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, it grows sweeter.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
-- Mary OliverSource : FaceBook post by Mary Oliver from Sep 17, 2016
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“Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)”
-- Mary Oliver -
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“Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.”
-- Mary Oliver -
“My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums...”
-- Mary Oliver
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