653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

Poems must, of course, be written in emotional freedom. Moreover, poems are not language but the content of the language.

But literature, the best of it, does not aim to be literature. It wants and strives, beyond that artifact part of itself, to be a true part of the composite human record—that is, not words but a reality.

But first and foremost, I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple—or a green field—a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing—an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness—wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company.

A Thousand MorningsAll night my heart makes its wayhowever it can over the rough groundof uncertainties, but only until nightmeets and then is overwhelmed bymorning, the light deepening, thewind easing and just waiting, as Itoo wait (and when have I ever beendisappointed?) for redbird to sing

The world has need of dreamers as well as shoemakers.

Sleep comes its little while. Then I wake in the valley of midnight or three a.m. to the first fragrances of spring which is coming, all by itself, no matter what.

Okay, I said. But remember, you can’t fixeverything in the world for everybody.“However,” said Ricky, “you can’t doanything at all unless you begin. Haven’tI heard you say that once or twice, ormaybe a hundred times?

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."[Maria Shriver Interviews the Famously Private Poet Mary Oliver (O Magazine, March 2011)]

5One or two things are all you needto travel over the blue pond, over the deeproughage of the trees and through the stiffflowers of lightning --- some deepmemory of pleasure, some cuttingknowledge of pain.6But to lift the hoof!For that you needan idea.7For years and years I struggledjust to love my life. And thenthe butterflyrose, weightless, in the wind."Don't love your lifetoo much," it said,and vanishedinto the world.