At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that.… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
A mind that is lively and inquiring, compassionate, curious, angry, full of music, full of feeling, is a mind full of possible… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Writing a poem ... is a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy factory… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“from the poem Hum, Hum The resurrection of the morning. The mystery of the night. The hummingbird's wings. The excitement of thunder.… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Gannets I am watching the white gannets blaze down into the water with the power of blunt spears and a stunning accuracy--… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“The poet dreams of the mountain Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts. I want to… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“I mean, by such flightiness, something that feels unsatisfied at the center of my life — that makes me shaky, fickle, inquisitive,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Dogfish I wanted The past to go away, I wanted To leave it, like another country; I wanted My life to close,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me" Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, saying, what joy to come falling out… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“When Death Comes When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Percy and Books Percy does not like it when I read a book. He puts his face over the top of it,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Percy wakes me (fourteen) Percy wakes me and I am not ready. He has slept all night under the covers. Now he’s… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“That Little Beast That pretty little beast, a poem, has a mind of its own. Sometimes I want it to crave apples… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“oxygen Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its home, the soul. So the merciful, noisy machine… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“The Fourth Sign of The Zodiac (Part 3) by Mary Oliver I know, you never intended to be in this world. But… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“I went down not long ago to the Mad River, under the willows I knelt and drank from that crumpled flow, call… — 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… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“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… — mary oliver Copy Share Image
“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
