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Mary Oliver

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Famous Mary Oliver Quotes

“Poetry is a river; many voices travel in it; poem after poem moves along in the exciting crests and falls of the river waves. None is timeless; each arrives in an historical context; almost everything, in the end, passes. But the desire to make a poem, and the world's willingness to receive it--indeed the world's need of it--these never pass.”

WorldNeedsEndsMovingDesirePoetryFallVoiceRiversExcitingHistoricalWavePoetry IsWillingnessTimelessHistorical Context
Book:A Poetry Handbook
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“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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“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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“I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.”

PeopleWorldHeartBookCharacterMysteryTreeWorstFieldsStandingCloudsConfusionAntidoteDeep InsideOtherness
Book:Upstream: Selected Essays
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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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“And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing.”

WorldFirstsMayTwoBookHouseIndividualEnergyLostParentMy OwnPiecesFateDogPaperBuiltStonesShouldersBoardsTwo ThingsBlankFoxesSteadfastTrue LifeOld DogOld Houses
Book:Upstream: Selected Essays
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“...Sometimes I dream that everything in the world is here, in my room, in a great closet, named and orderly, and I am here too, in front of it, hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness- and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing; and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.”

WorldPersonsSometimesDreamHandsAbleRoomsFrontsQuietSingingKneesFlashClosetsBrightnessOrderlyClappingQuiet Person
Book:Why I Wake Early: New Poems
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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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“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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“Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine cone You never know What opportunity Is going to travel to you, Or through you. Once a friend gave me A small pine cone- One of a few He found in the scat Of a grizzly In Utah maybe, Or Wyoming. I took it home And did what I supposed He was sure I would do- I ate it, Thinking How it had traveled Through that rough And holy body. It was crisp and sweet. It was almost a prayer Without words. My gratitude, Tom Dancer, For this gift of the world I adore so much And want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWantHomeBodyFoundOpportunityPrayerSweetBearsGratitudeHolyDancerRoughTomsTraveledAdoreCrispsUtahConesWyomingGrizzlies
Author:Mary Oliver
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“The sweetness of dogs (fifteen) What do you say, Percy? I am thinking of sitting out on the sand to watch the moon rise. Full tonight. So we go and the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder, makes me think about time and space, makes me take measure of myself: one iota pondering heaven. Thus we sit, I thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile, leans against me and gazes up into my face. As though I were his perfect moon.”

ThinkingWorldBeautifulFacesHeavenSpacePerfectWatchesRichDogMoonSittingGratefulSandTonightFifteenSweetnessTime And SpacePonderingPerfect BeautyMoon Rise
Author:Mary Oliver
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“Mornings at Blackwater" For years, every morning, I drank from Blackwater Pond. It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt, the feet of ducks. And always it assuaged me from the dry bowl of the very far past. What I want to say is that the past is the past, and the present is what your life is, and you are capable of choosing what that will be, darling citizen. So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.”

WorldWantYearsPastLife IsImaginationMorningDoubtFeetCitizensCapableRiversLongingLipsDryNo DoubtDucksEvery MorningBowlsLive Your LifeDarlingDrankHarborsOaksPonds
Book:Red Bird: Poems
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