Quotes from Mary Oliver

A mind that is lively and inquiring, compassionate, curious, angry, full of music, full of feeling, is a mind full of possible poetry.

the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own

What can we do about God, who makes and then breaks every god-forsaken, beautiful day?

So every day So every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God, one of which was you.

Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.

But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.

We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness.

Like Magellan, let us find our islands To die in, far from home, from anywhere Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.

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.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.

Of course! The path to heaven doesn't lie down in flat miles. It's in the imagination with which you perceive this world, and the gestures with which you honor it.

...whoever you are, not matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh & exciting - over & over announcing your place in the family of things.

Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.

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

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

I always feel that whatever isn't necessary shouldn't be in a poem.

I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them.

I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.

I read Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, every day.

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

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention.

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.