Quotes from Mary Oliver

Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound.

I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.

Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us.

Who do you want to be in your one wild and precious life?

When it's over I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I grew up in a sad, depressed place. I got out. Poetry saved my life.

All my life I have been restless-- I have felt there is something more wonderful than gloss-- than wholeness-- than staying at home.

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.

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.

I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation.

In college, you learn how to learn. Four years is not too much time to spend at that.

I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.

Apparently, I've been considered a recluse.

I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.

Things take the time they take. Don't worry.

The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone. When I'm alone I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.

If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.

I'm going to die one day. I know it's coming for me, too. I'll be a mountain, I'll be a stone on the beach. I'll be nourishment.

Things take the time they take.Don't worry.How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?

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