Mary Oliver Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

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Something totally unexpected,
like a barking cat.

Mary Oliver
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Mary Oliver
There is only one question: how to love this world.

Mary Oliver
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver
If the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Mary Oliver
What men build, in the name of security, is built of straw.

Mary Oliver
Wild sings the bird of the heart in the forests of our lives.

Mary Oliver
You, too, can be carved anew by the details of your devotion.

Mary Oliver
Listen. Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?

Mary Oliver
Among the swans there is none called the least,
or the greatest.

Mary Oliver
Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, Stay awhile.

Mary Oliver
Today I am altogether without ambition. Where did I get such wisdom?

Mary Oliver
A Plan for Living a Life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

Mary Oliver
I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery.

Mary Oliver
Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.

Mary Oliver
Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.

Mary Oliver
I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention...

Mary Oliver
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it.

Mary Oliver
Every day I walk out into the world / to be dazzled, then to be reflective.

Mary Oliver
I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea.

Mary Oliver
For some things there are no wrong seasons. Which is what I dream of for me.

Mary Oliver
After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world.

Mary Oliver
Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents.

Mary Oliver
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver
I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.

Mary Oliver
All culture developed as some wild, raw creature strived to live better and longer.

Mary Oliver
Also I wanted to be able to love And we all know how that one goes, don't we? Slowly

Mary Oliver
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination...

Mary Oliver
Maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us—

Mary Oliver