33 Mary Oliver Quotes for You to Enjoy

Mary Oliver

American Poet

Born: Sep 10, 1935

Day Life Me Work World You

Related authors: Edgar Allan Poe Emily Dickinson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Maya Angelou Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost T. S. Eliot Walt Whitman

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. 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 love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. Mary Oliver

Life Love Dog Gift Honor Own Down Increased Our Born Small Because Least Dogs Should Reason Why Street

Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they're thirsty. That's prayer. They don't live an unconscious life, they simply have no language to talk about these things. But they are grateful for the good things that come along. 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 Oliver

Spiritual You World Able About Accept Understand Truly Order

I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life. Mary Oliver

Life Wonderful My Life Think Write Exciting Powerful Powerful Thing Most Most Powerful Very Wonderful Thing Wanted Decided Profession Even Thing Early Career

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

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

Work Pay Pay Attention Our Proper Attention Endless

So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray. Mary Oliver

You Inward How Pray Swim Flow

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. Mary Oliver

Instead of taking the reader by the hand and running him down the hill, I want to lead him into a house of many rooms, and leave him alone in each of them. Mary Oliver

Alone Down Running Lead Instead Taking Hill House Him Reader Leave Hand Want Them Rooms Many Each

To tell you the truth, I believe everything - tigers, trees, stones - are sentient in one way or another. You'd never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example. Mary Oliver

I went to India and was quite taken with it. There's a feeling there that things are holy first and useful second. Mary Oliver

First Feeling India Taken Quite Holy Useful Things Second

Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious. Mary Oliver

Work Me Walks Enter Neither Some Arena Unconscious Conscious

Believe me, if anybody has a job and starts at 9, there's no reason why they can't get up at 4:30 or five and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day - which is what I did. Mary Oliver

I was very careful never to take an interesting job. If you have an interesting job, you get interested in it. Mary Oliver

You Job Take Never Very Get Interested Interesting Careful

I'd rather write about polar bears than people. Mary Oliver

People About Rather Bears Write Polar Than

As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other. Mary Oliver

Myself Me World Reading Other Alive Poems Nevertheless Without Material Child Any Substance Which Realizing Captivated

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