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Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver Quotes

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Famous Mary Oliver Quotes

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

IfsWorldWayGivingFeelsKindMadeStillsSometimesWholeJoyFightingLeftLove IsCasesWiseHappenedPossibilityTownsRichesDestroyedPlentyInstantRedeemedCrumbsStill LifeFighting Back
Book:Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
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“When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

IfsWorldWantLifeInspirationalMadeRealEndsWonderThis WorldParticularArmsMarriedArgumentFrightenedBridesAmazementBridegroom
Author:Mary Oliver
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“I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.”

IfsLightEarthNightStarsWaterDarkWhitePerfectMorningDarknessFireHeardTreeBedBirdRiversStonesRoseSeedsKingdomsBreathingRememberedBranchesPocketsDozenMy ThoughtsInsectsDoomAll NightSomething BetterSkirtsLuminousMothsArrangingGrappling
Book:Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
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