653 Quotes by Mary Oliver

Poetry is meant to be heard.

To tell you the truth, I believe everything - tigers, trees, stones - are sentient in one way or another. You'd never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example.

Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they're thirsty. That's prayer. They don't live an unconscious life, they simply have no language to talk about these things. But they are grateful for the good things that come along.

I'd rather write about polar bears than people.

Believe me, if anybody has a job and starts at 9, there's no reason why they can't get up at 4:30 or five and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day - which is what I did.

I read Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, every day.

I grew up in a confused house: too much unwanted attention or none at all.

I acknowledge my feeling and gratitude for life by praising the world and whoever made all these things.

I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.