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Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver Quotes

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Famous Mary Oliver Quotes

“Along with the differences that abide in each of us, there is also in each of us a maverick, the darling stubborn one who won't listen, who insists, who chooses preference or the spirited guess over yardsticks or even history. I suspect this maverick is somewhat what the soul is, or at least that the soul lives close by and companionably with its agitating and inquiring force.”

SoulForceDifferencesSuspectsStubbornPreferenceDarlingSpiritedInquiringMaverickYardsticksSoul Life
Book:Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
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“It is no use thinking that writing of poems - the actual writing - can accommodate itself to a social setting, even the most sympathetic social setting of a workshop composed of friends. It cannot. The work improves there and often the will to work gets valuable nourishment and ideas. But, for good reasons, the poem requires of the writer not society or instruction, but a patch of profound and unbroken solitude.”

ThinkingWritingIdeasReasonUseSocialSolitudeProfoundValuableSettingSettingsInstructionPatchesSympatheticNourishmentAccommodateWorkshopsUnbroken
Book:A Poetry Handbook
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“But the owls themselves are not hard to find, silent and on the wing, with their ear tufts flat against their heads as they fly and their huge wings alternately gliding and flapping as they maneuver through the trees. Athena's owl of wisdom and Merlin's companion, Archimedes, were screech owls surely, not this bird with the glassy gaze, restless on the bough, nothing but blood on its mind.”

MindHardTreeBloodHugeBirdEarsWingsSilentFlatsCompanionRestlessOwlAthenaGlidingFlapping
Book:Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays
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“I would say that there exists a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves-we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together, we are each other's destiny.”

WorldWayTogetherStarsChanceDestinyRiskOne ThingTreeFeetThousandRiversDignityListsLinksMudDecencyClosingChances AreUnbreakableLeopardsPine Trees
Author:Mary Oliver
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“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled-to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing-that the light is everything-that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.”

WorldWantBelieveLittlesStillsFactsLightLife IsDifficultWhiteFireMysteryWillingWeightCastsRisingImperfectionFloatsFlawedFading
Book:New and Selected Poems, Volume One
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