653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

We did not know she was sick, but she has come to the fence, walking like a woman who is balancing a sword inside of her body.

I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple--or a green field--a place to enter, and in which to feel.

Language is rich, and malleable. It is a living, vibrant material, and every part of a poem works in conjunction with every other part - the content, the place, the diction, the rhythm, the tone-as well as the very sliding, floating, thumping, rapping sounds of it.

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator./In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting/to come out of its cloud and lift its wings.

Come with me into the woods where spring isadvancing, as it does, no matter what,not being singular or particular, but oneof the forever gifts, and certainly visible.

Writing is neither vibrant life nor docile artifact but a text that would put all its money on the hope of suggestion.

From the poem: The First Time Percy Came BackYes, it’s all different,” he said.“You’re going to be very surprised.”But I wasn’t thinking of that. I onlywanted to hold him. “Listen,” he said,“I miss that too.And now you’ll be telling storiesof my coming backand they won’t be false, and they won’t be true,but they’ll be real.”And then, as he used to, he said, “Let’s go!”And we walked down the beach together.

That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I went closer, and I did not die.

Winter walks up and down the town swinging his censer, but no smoke or sweetness comes from it, only the sour, metallic frankness of salt and snow.