Quotes from Mary Oliver

Attention without feeling is only a report.

It is supposed that a writer writes what he knows about and knows well. It is not necessarily so. A writer's subject may just as well, if not more likely, be what the writer longs for and dreams about, in an unquenchable dream, in lush detail and harsh honesty.

I am a performing artist; I perfomr admiration. 'Come with me', I want my poems to say. 'And do the same

I am a performing artist; I perform admiration. 'Come with me', I want my poems to say. 'And do the same

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.

I know someone who kisses the way a flower opens, but more rapidly. Flowers are sweet. They have short, beatific lives. They offer much pleasure. There is nothing in the world that can be said against them. Sad, isn't it, that all they can kiss is the air. Yes, yes! We are the lucky ones.

If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it? Of course, it isn't. Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only the light that can shine out of a life.

No, I mean really listen. Here's a story, and you don't have to visit many houses to find it. One person is talking, the other one is not really listening. someone can look like they are but they're actually thinking about something they want to say, or their minds are just wandering. Or they're looking at that little box people hold in their hands these days. And people get discouraged, so they quit trying. And the very quiet people, you may have noticed, are often the sad people.

I began to pick through the red rivers of confusion; I began to take apart the deep stitches of nightmares.

Clear pebbles of the rain

Writing is neither vibrant life nor docile artifact but a text that would put all its money on the hope of suggestion.

For me it was important to be alone; solitude was a prerequisite to being openly and joyfully susceptible and responsive to the world of leaves, light, birdsong, flowers, flowing water.

God, or the gods, are invisible, quite understandable. But holiness is visible, entirely.

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us, even in the leafless winter, even in the ashy city. I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it from "Starlings in Winter

And whoever thinks these are worthy, breathy words I am writing down is kind. Writing is neither vibrant life nor docile artifact but a text that would put all its money on the hope of suggestion. Come with me into the field of sunflowers is a better line than anything you will find here, and the sunflowers themselves far more wonderful than any words about them.

If you are in the garden, I will dress myself in leaves. If you are in the sea I will slide into that smooth blue nest, I will talk fish, I will adore salt. But if you are sad, I will not dress myself in desolation. I will present myself with all the laughters I can muster. And if you are angry I will come, calm and steady, with some small and easy story.

It's true, isn't it, in our world, that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns are a single thing- that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns are a single thing- that even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkness, would be without expression- that love itself, without pain, would be no more than a shrug gable comfort.

Listen, the heart-shackles are not, as you think, death, illness, pain, unrequited hope, not loneliness, but lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety, selfishness

I am so happy to be alive in this world I would like to live forever, but I am content not to. Seeing what I have seen has filled me; believing what I believe has filled me.

Are the roses not also--even as the owl is--excessive? Each flower is small and lovely, but in their sheer and silent abundance the roses become an immutable force, as though the work of the wild roses was to make sure that all of us, who come wandering over the sand, may be, for a while, struck to the heart and saturated with a simple joy.

But the palace of knowledge is different from the palace of discovery, in which I am, truly, a Copernicus.

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?

I don't want to end up simply having visited the world.