Mary Oliver quotes - page 3

It is better for the heart to break, than not to break. (Mary Oliver)
it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world. View quote
Mary Oliver
Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going. View quote
Mary Oliver
I know many lives worth living. View quote
Mary Oliver
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. View quote
Mary Oliver
Love, love, love, says Percy. And hurry as fast as you can along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust. Then, go to sleep. Give up your body heat, your beating heart. Then, trust. View quote
Mary Oliver
What misery to be afraid of death. What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven. View quote
Mary Oliver
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. View quote
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... View quote
Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. View quote
Mary Oliver
For some things there are no wrong seasons. Which is what I dream of for me. (Mary Oliver)
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. View quote
Mary Oliver
I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea. View quote
Mary Oliver
When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included. View quote
Mary Oliver
Poetry is a life-cherishing force. View quote
Mary Oliver
Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead. View quote
Mary Oliver
We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it. View quote
Mary Oliver
Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems. View quote
Mary Oliver
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. View quote
Mary Oliver
There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier? View quote
Mary Oliver
Always there is something worth saying about glory, about gratitude. (Mary Oliver)
After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world. View quote
Mary Oliver
The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus. View quote
Mary Oliver
And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead / children out of the fields into the text / of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass. View quote
Mary Oliver
Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving. View quote
Mary Oliver