Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliveris an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's best-selling poet."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 September 1935
CityMaple Heights, OH
CountryUnited States of America
love life relationship
To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
weed blue voice
Praying It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
summer fall grief
How many mysteries have you seen in your lifetime? How many nets pulled full over the boat's side, each silver body ready or not falling into submission? How many roses in early summer uncurling above the pale sands then falling back in unfathomable willingness? And what can you say? Glory to the rose and the leaf, to the seed, to the silver fish. Glory to time and the wild fields, and to joy. And to grief's shock and torpor, its near swoon.
two fire ability-to-love
In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.
giving joy feels
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.
world littles pity
When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included.
world walks
Every day I walk out into the world / to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
looks alive world
Look, I want to love this world as though it's the last chance I'm ever going to get to be alive and know it.
character worry shining
The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention. I don't say this without reckoning in the sorrow, the worry, the many diminishments. But surely it is then that a person's character shines or glooms.
uprising people creative
The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
sentences aspire
Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.
heart bird forests
Wild sings the bird of the heart in the forests of our lives.
what-matters mind let-me
Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
writing wanted
He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.