Home / Authors / Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver Quotes

Poet

Mary Oliver is a renowned American poet, born on September 10, 1935. Her poetry is known for its profound depiction of the natural world and delicate insights into life. Oliver's style is simple and direct, which has won her a wide audience.

Filter quotes by topic

All World Poetry Want Nature Knows Life Love Ifs Heart Thinking Writing Body Morning Dog Inspirational Way Attention Light Littles Mary Oliver

Famous Mary Oliver Quotes

“To interrupt the writer from the line of thought is to wake the dreamer from the dream. The dreamer cannot enter that dream, precisely as it was unfolding, ever again.”

Writing Solitude Dreaming

Author:Mary Oliver

“I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.”

Thinking Writing Wanted Powerful Careers Wonderful Decided Exciting Profession Things To Do Most Powerful Wonderful Things Exciting Things

Author:Mary Oliver

“It was not a choice of writing or not writing. It was a choice of loving my life or not loving my life. To keep writing was always a first priority.... I worked probably 25 years by myself.... Just writing and working, not trying to publish much. Not giving readings. A longer time than people really are willing to commit before they want to go public.”

People Want Giving Writing Trying Years Firsts Choices Reading Willing Priorities Commit Publish

Author:Mary Oliver

“It is no use thinking that writing of poems - the actual writing - can accommodate itself to a social setting, even the most sympathetic social setting of a workshop composed of friends. It cannot. The work improves there and often the will to work gets valuable nourishment and ideas. But, for good reasons, the poem requires of the writer not society or instruction, but a patch of profound and unbroken solitude.”

Thinking Writing Ideas Reason Use Social Solitude Profound Valuable Setting Settings Instruction Patches Sympathetic Nourishment Accommodate Workshops Unbroken

Book:A Poetry Handbook

Source: A Poetry Handbook

“I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.”

Writing Wanted

Author:Mary Oliver

“Writing a poem ... is a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy factory of emotion) and the learned skills of the conscious mind.”

Writing Mind Heart Kind Emotion Skills Conscious Affair Shy Courageous Factories Love Affair Conscious Mind Possible Love

Book:A Poetry Handbook

Source: A Poetry Handbook

“... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers.”

Writing Wells Teacher Best Teacher

Book:A Poetry Handbook

Source: A Poetry Handbook

“We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading, walking around the woods in Ohio, where I grew up.”

Writing Years Heart Reading Deals Grew Walking Grew Up Hunger Woods Hungry Ohio Writing And Reading

Author:Mary Oliver

“Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response.”

Giving Writing Sometimes Wonderful Groups Strange Giving Up Response Edges Accommodate Advocating

Author:Mary Oliver

“I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.”

Thinking Writing Kind Use Poet Get Up Reporters Choreography

Author:Mary Oliver

“I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.”

Writing Wells Doe Walks Journey Walking Wander Hiking Notebook Trekking Strolling Sauntering Few Words

Author:Mary Oliver

“The poet must not only write the poem but must scrutinize the world intensely, or anyway that part of the world he or she has taken for subject. If the poem is thin, it is likely so not because the poet does not know enough words, but because he or she has not stood long enough among the flowers--has not seen them in any fresh, exciting, and valid way.”

Ifs Knows World Way Writing Long Doe Enough Taken Subjects Poet Flower Exciting Scrutinize

Author:Mary Oliver

“He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.”

Writing Wanted

Book:New and Selected Poems, Volume Two

Source: New and Selected Poems, Volume Two

“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.”

Thinking Want Feels Writing Heart Ends Stories Feelings Pain Reading Realizing Common Known Arranging

Author:Mary Oliver

“Rhythm is one of the most powerful of pleasures, and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, it grows sweeter.”

Feels Writing Doe Grows Pleasure Powerful Rhythm Most Powerful

Book:A Poetry Handbook

Source: A Poetry Handbook

“It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone.”

Ifs Thinking Way Writing I Can Important Waiting Loses Lines Morning Gone Wake Up

Author:Mary Oliver

“I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings.”

Giving Writing Trying Years Reading Publish

Author:Mary Oliver

About the Author

Born: September 10, 1935
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 391

Books & Sources

New and Selected Poems, Volume OneRelated source material

Dream WorkRelated source material

A Poetry HandbookRelated source material

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary OliverRelated source material

Upstream: Selected EssaysRelated source material

A Thousand Mornings: PoemsRelated source material

Evidence: PoemsRelated source material

New and selected poemsRelated source material

Swan: Poems and Prose PoemsRelated source material

Why I Wake Early: New PoemsRelated source material

Similar Authors

Michael JacksonBrowse related quotes
Stephen KingBrowse related quotes
David LevithanBrowse related quotes
Jeanette WintersonBrowse related quotes
Ray BradburyBrowse related quotes
Salman RushdieBrowse related quotes
Taylor SwiftBrowse related quotes
William Butler YeatsBrowse related quotes
Neil GaimanBrowse related quotes
Anne LamottBrowse related quotes