653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

Reading, then writing, then desiring to write well, shaped in me that most joyful of circumstances – a passion for work.

I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility.

The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird, the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the otter, the dragonfly, the water lily! And on and on. It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least ten times a day.

Knowledge has entertained me and it has shaped me and it has failed me. Something in me still starves. In what is probably the most serious inquiry of my life, I have begun to look past reason, past the provable, in other directions. Now I think there is only one subject worth my attention and that is the precognition of the spiritual side of the world and, within this recognition, the condition of my own spiritual state.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.

I simply was not able to risk wrecking her world, and I could see no possible way I could move the whole kingdom. So I left her with the only thing I could – the certainty of a little more time.

I know a lot of fancy words. I tear them from my heart and my tongue. Then I pray.

It is the news that no one is singular, that no argument will change the course, that one’s time is more gone than not, and what is left waits to be spent gracefully and attentively, if not quite so actively.

What lay on the road was no mere handful of snake. It was the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp. I hope to see everything in this world before I die.