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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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“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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“from the complications of loving you i think there is no end or return. no answer, no coming out of it. which is the only way to love, isn't it? this isn't a playground, this is earth, our heaven, for a while. therefore i have given precedence to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods that hold you in the center of my world. and i say to my body: grow thinner still. and i say to my fingers, type me a pretty song. and i say to my heart: rave on.”

ThinkingWorldWayHeartStillsEndsBodyEarthSongGivenHeavenGrowsDarkAnswersTypeReturnMy HeartFingersMoodComing OutLoving YouPlaygroundsComplicationPrecedenceSullenRave
Author:Mary Oliver
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“I had a dog who loved flowers. Briskly she went through the fields, yet paused for the honeysuckle or the rose, her dark head and her wet nose touching the face of every one with its petals of silk with its fragrance rising into the air where the bees, their bodies heavy with pollen hovered - and easily she adored every blossom not in the serious careful way that we choose this blossom or that blossom the way we praise or don't praise - the way we love or don't love - but the way we long to be - that happy in the heaven of earth - that wild, that loving.”

WayLongBodyEarthFacesHeavenDarkAirDogFieldsSeriousFlowerPraiseRoseCarefulHeavyNosesRisingTouchingWetBeesFragranceSilkPetalsPollen
Author:Mary Oliver
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