653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

I did not come into this world to be comforted.I came, like a red bird, to sing.But I'm not a red bird, with his head mop of flameand the red triangle of his mouthfull of tongue and whistles,but a woman whose love has vanished,who thinks now, too much, of rootsand the dark placeswhere everything is simply holding on.

When one writes "the last apple on the tree," or "the one small peach as pink as dawn," one is beginning to deal with particulars - to develop texture...Such texture is vital to all poetry. It is what makes the poem an experience, something much more than mere statement.

I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life.

When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.

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.

Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dak trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more the prettiness.

All eternity is in the moment.

I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.