653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

What's magical, sometimes, has deeper roots than reason.

I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.

When a man says he hears angels singing,he hears angels singing.

The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing or toss havoc shoreward; it can give gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can sweet-talk entirely. As I can too, and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

If it is...not just one's own accomplishment that carries one from this green and mortal world--that lifts the latch and gives a glimpse into a greater paradise--then perhaps one has the sensibility: a gratitude apart from authorship, a fervor and desire beyond the margins of the self.

Why should I have been surprised?Hunters walk the forestwithout a sound.The hunter, strapped to his rifle,the fox on his feet of silk,the serpent on his empire of muscles—all move in a stillness,hungry, careful, intent.Just as the cancerentered the forest of my body,without a sound.

When death is about to happendoes the body grow heavier, or lighter?

…Maybe death isn’t darkness at all, but so much light wrapping itself around us — as soft as feathers — that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes, not without amazement, and let ourselves be carried, as through the translucence of mica to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow — that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light — in which we are washed and washed out of our bones.“White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field,” House of Light (1990)

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.