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
plan precious wild
Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?
breathing
What can we dobut keep on breathing in and out,modest and willing, and in our places?
children earnestly people sorrow work
There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty.
morning broken alive
it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.
love inspirational life
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.
sight depth asks
I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.
dream heart imagination
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.
love inspirational animal
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
morning lucky persons
It's morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it.
life responsibility giving
You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.
wonderful sometimes stop-time
I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us...
risk despair comfort
... Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.
morning mean night
There are things you can’t reach. But You can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god. And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier. I look; morning to night I am never done with looking. Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around As though with your arms open.
love-you rose singing
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone. When I'm alone I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.