Poetry is a serious business; literature is the apparatus through which the world tries to keep intact its important ideas and feelings. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Belief isn't always easy. But this much I have learned--- if not enough else--- to live with my eyes open. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Poetry is one of the original arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees - to learn… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“All important ideas must include the trees, the mountains, and the rivers. • To understand many things you must reach out of your own condition.” — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Sometimes I think, were I just a little rougher made, I would go altogether to the woods—to my work entirely, and solitude, a few friends, books, my dogs, all things peaceful, ready for meditation and industry—if for no other reason than to escape the heart-jamming damages and discouragements of the worlds mean spirits. But, no use. Even the most solitudinous… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
“First Snow The snow began here this morning and all day continued, its white rhetoric everywhere calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty and what the meaning; such an oracular fever! flowing past windows, an energy it seemed would never ebb, never settle less than lovely! and only now, deep into night, it has finally ended. The silence is immense,… — mary oliver Copy Share
“What can I say that I have not said before? So I’ll say it again. The leaf has a song in it. Stone is… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
