653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

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.

How shall I go on, with my introspective and ambitious life?

He was, of course, a piece of the sky. His eyes said so. This is not a face; this is the other part of knowing something, when there is no proof, but neither is there any way toward disbelief. Imagine lifting the lid from a jar and finding it filled not with darkness but with light. Bird was like that. Startling, elegant, alive.

And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far, that is better than these light-filled bodies?

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It’s duty.

I would write praise poems that might serve as comforts, reminders, or even cautions if needed, to wayward minds and unawakened hearts.

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem. But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor, which is dull enough.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.