“because my life without you would be a place of parched and broken trees” — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
On poetry: Everyone wants to know what it means. But nobody is asking, How does it feel? — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Now the fire rises and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red roses of flame.” — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Of course! the path to heaven doesn't lie down in flat miles. It's in the imagination with which you perceive this world,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
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
“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
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
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
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
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
“It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
The poet dreams of the classroom I dreamed I stood up in class And I said aloud: Teacher, Why is algebra important?… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“The Old Poets Of China Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“When it over, I want to say:all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was a bridegroom, taking the… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“At Blackwater Pond At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Blossom In April the ponds open like black blossoms, the moon swims in every one; there’s fire everywhere: frogs shouting their desire,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I went closer, and I did not die.… — 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace?” — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Writers must... take care of the sensibility that houses the possibility of poems. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
The three ingredients of poetry: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, the energy of language. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Who can guess the impatience of stone to be ground down, to be a part of something livelier?” — 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.… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who… — 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
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
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
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
“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
“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
“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
“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
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
“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
“I stood like Adam in his lonely garden On that first morning, shaken out of sleep, Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves, Like… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
