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Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver Quotes

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Famous Mary Oliver Quotes

“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 and what the meaning; such an oracular fever! flowing past windows, an energy it seemed would never ebb, never settle less than lovely! and only now, deep into night, it has finally ended. The silence is immense, and the heavens still hold a million candles; nowhere the familiar things: stars, the moon, the darkness we expect and nightly turn from. Trees glitter like castles of ribbons, the broad fields smolder with light, a passing creekbed lies heaped with shining hills; and though the questions that have assailed us all day remain—not a single answer has been found— walking out now into the silence and the light under the trees, and through the fields, feels like one.”

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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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“Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety – best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light – good morning, good morning, good morning. Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”

MadeHandsLightHappensFacesUniverseStarsWatchesKindnessMorningDarknessSunFieldsGloryWindowDearSpreadWarmMiserableEaseWhere You AreTouchingPreacherHelloStart The DayNoddingMorning Glory
Book:Why I Wake Early: New Poems
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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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“On the beach, at dawn: Four small stones clearly Hugging each other. How many kinds of love Might there be in the world, And how many formations might they make And who am I ever To imagine I could know Such a marvelous business? When the sun broke It poured willingly its light Over the stones That did not move, not at all, Just as, to its always generous term, It shed its light on me, My own body that loves, Equally, to hug another body.”

KnowsWorldKindBodyLightMightMovingTermMy OwnSunFourImagineStonesBrokeBeachDawnGenerousHugShedMarvelousFormationKinds Of Love
Book:Swan: Poems and Prose 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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