653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.

Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious.

Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems.

Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.

I simply do not distinguish between work and play.

Sing, if you can sing, and it not still be musical inside yourself.

I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.

To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it.

In your hands The dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive. Who would argue otherwise? But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that. What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines? Listen, all you have to do is start and There’ll be no stopping. What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks? And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take years Before, finally, you hear them?