Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
It was not a choice of writing or not writing. It was a choice of loving my life or not loving my… — 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
When When it’s over, it’s over, and we don’t know any of us, what happens then. So I try not to miss… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
It doesn't have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree... Of course I have to give up, but… — 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
Almost anything is too much. I am trying in my poems to have the reader be the experiencer. I do not want… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing… — 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
