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Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver Quotes

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Famous Mary Oliver Quotes

“I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think— no, you will realize— that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your heart had been saying.”

ThinkingWantFeelsWritingHeartEndsStoriesFeelingsPainReadingRealizingCommonKnownArranging
Author:Mary Oliver
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“Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful. Then, by the end of morning, he's gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone.”

WellsEndsEnoughSeemsNightFallVoicePoorSilenceMorningGoneToo MuchImagineTreeSkySpringSingingGratefulWoodsPassingPassingsLiftsAcceptableGlowingPassing ThroughI Am GratefulPoor LifeThrushMahlerVerdi
Book:A Thousand Mornings: Poems
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“LITTLE DOGS RHAPSODY IN THE NIGHT (PERCY THREE) He puts his cheek against mine and makes small, expressive sounds. And when I'm awake, or awake enough he turns upside down, his four paws in the air and his eyes dark and fervent. Tell me you love me, he says. Tell me again. Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask it. I get to tell.”

LittlesEnoughEyeNightTurnsThreeAsksSoundDarkFourAirDogMinesAwakeHis EyesCheeksArrangementsUpside DownExpressivePawsFerventTell Me You Love Me
Book:Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
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“When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that run by there is this thick paw of my life darting among the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue.”

ThinkingBodyRunningBlackDarkAcceptingArmsSummerMouthsWoodsTongueBranchesReachingHoneyThickBellsRippedPawsCreeksSwollenBlackberriesCramming
Book:New and selected poems
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“Can one be passionate about the just, the ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit no labor in its cause? I don't think so. All summations have a beginning, all effect has a story, all kindness beings with the sown seed. Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of light is the crossroads of - indolence, or action. Be ignited or be gone.”

ThinkingStoriesLightActionCausesKindnessGoneEffectsHolyIdealsLaborPassionateSeedsCommitAll KindsSublimeBudRadianceCrossroadsIndolence
Author:Mary Oliver
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“Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?”

WorldShouldWellsReasonBornStreetsDogThis WorldHonorRiversGreenGrassReason WhyJoyfulnessWithout MusicSmall Gifts
Book:Dog Songs: Deluxe Edition
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