Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
3b818ee	You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wil..	nature poetry birds shore woods	Mary Oliver
230b84b	Instructions for living a life. Pay attention.		Mary Oliver
eb66673	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	poem poetry	Mary Oliver
20c0b2c	One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and th..	poetry strength	Mary Oliver
6b4ae55	You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.	life whimsy	Mary Oliver
b144209	When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,		Mary Oliver
10dbdd7	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.		Mary Oliver
a40cf9e	Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, 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 ..	poetry	Mary Oliver
e294f7a	I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.		Mary Oliver
7058d5b	Tell me, what is it you plan to do		Mary Oliver
d37ffe0	Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.		Mary Oliver
3508d71	Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled-- to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even		Mary Oliver
3905933	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.	sorrow poetry	Mary Oliver
a238d34	You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn't need anymore of that sound. So if you're going to do it and can't stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't hold it in, at least go by yourself across the forty fields and the forty dark inclines of rocks and water to the place where the falls are flinging out their white sheets like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that jubilation and water fun and..		Mary Oliver
f42dc09	Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine	winter nature prettiness winter-night snow	Mary Oliver
8e7d317	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.		Mary Oliver
ec41c05	there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do --		Mary Oliver
90bf9da	If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the insta..	nature poetry love	Mary Oliver
4eea376	Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?		Mary Oliver
eff273e	It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.	inspirational	Mary Oliver
fab34c5	I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.	writing	Mary Oliver
812a188	it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.		Mary Oliver
c84957a	So every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth		Mary Oliver
cad5290	maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us--		Mary Oliver
48002bc	When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. --from WHEN DEATH COMES		Mary Oliver
9aeec05	Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me	rain beauty happiness love inspirational	Mary Oliver
2a03eea	It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning -- it'll be gone." [	writing creative-process notes ideas memory	Mary Oliver
a4ed17e	Intellectual work sometimes, spiritual work certainly, artistic work always -- these are forces that fall within its grasp, forces that must travel beyond the realm of the hour and the restraint of the habit. Nor can the actual work be well separated from the entire life. Like the knights of the Middle Ages, there is little the creatively inclined person can do but to prepare himself, body and spirit, for the labor to come -- for his advent..	inspirational creativity	Mary Oliver
6f603a7	Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?		Mary Oliver
aca14fa	Listen. Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?		Mary Oliver
52bcb16	What men build, in the name of security, is built of straw.		Mary Oliver
4ed201c	I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.		Mary Oliver
bce423f	My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -- equal seekers of sweetness		Mary Oliver
847f43a	Among the swans there is none called the least, \xa0or the greatest.		Mary Oliver
2586839	Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.		Mary Oliver

3b818ee

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wil..

nature poetry birds shore woods

Mary Oliver

230b84b

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention.

Mary Oliver

eb66673

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

poem poetry

Mary Oliver

20c0b2c

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and th..

poetry strength

Mary Oliver

6b4ae55

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

life whimsy

Mary Oliver

b144209

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

Mary Oliver

10dbdd7

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.

Mary Oliver

a40cf9e

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, 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 ..

poetry

Mary Oliver

e294f7a

I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.

Mary Oliver

7058d5b

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

Mary Oliver

d37ffe0

Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.

Mary Oliver

3508d71

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled-- to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even

Mary Oliver

3905933

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.

sorrow poetry

Mary Oliver

a238d34

You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn't need anymore of that sound. So if you're going to do it and can't stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't hold it in, at least go by yourself across the forty fields and the forty dark inclines of rocks and water to the place where the falls are flinging out their white sheets like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that jubilation and water fun and..

Mary Oliver

f42dc09

Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine

winter nature prettiness winter-night snow

Mary Oliver

8e7d317

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.

Mary Oliver

ec41c05

there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do --

Mary Oliver

90bf9da

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the insta..

nature poetry love

Mary Oliver

4eea376

Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Mary Oliver

eff273e

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

inspirational

Mary Oliver

fab34c5

I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.

writing

Mary Oliver

812a188

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Mary Oliver

c84957a

So every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth

Mary Oliver

cad5290

maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us--

Mary Oliver

48002bc

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. --from WHEN DEATH COMES

Mary Oliver

9aeec05

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

rain beauty happiness love inspirational

Mary Oliver

2a03eea

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning -- it'll be gone." [

writing creative-process notes ideas memory

Mary Oliver

a4ed17e

Intellectual work sometimes, spiritual work certainly, artistic work always -- these are forces that fall within its grasp, forces that must travel beyond the realm of the hour and the restraint of the habit. Nor can the actual work be well separated from the entire life. Like the knights of the Middle Ages, there is little the creatively inclined person can do but to prepare himself, body and spirit, for the labor to come -- for his advent..

inspirational creativity