Mary Oliver

"There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But who wants easier?"

- Mary Oliver

"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"

- Mary Oliver

"It is a serious thing – just to be alive – on this fresh morning – in this broken world."

- Mary Oliver

"To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work."

- Mary Oliver

"It is a serious thing–just to be alive–on this fresh morning–in this broken world."

- Mary Oliver

"Instructions for living a life. / Pay attention. / Be astonished. Tell about it."

- Mary Oliver

"You have to be in the world to understand what the spiritual is about, and you have to be spiritual in order to truly be able to accept what the world is about."

- Mary Oliver

"Someone I once loved gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

- Mary Oliver

"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable."

- Mary Oliver

"Someone I loved once gave me A box full of darkness. It took me years to understand That this, too, was a gift."

- Mary Oliver

"Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness."

- Mary Oliver

"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

- Mary Oliver

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

"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. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

"My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird – equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums."

- Mary Oliver

"My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums."

- Mary Oliver

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

- Mary Oliver

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift."

- Mary Oliver

"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."

- Mary Oliver

"You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it."

- Mary Oliver

"Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird – equal seekers of sweetness."

- Mary Oliver

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

"Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness."

- Mary Oliver

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

- Mary Oliver

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

- Mary Oliver

"Now tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

- Mary Oliver

"August of another summer, and once again I am drinking the sun and the lilies again are spread across the water."

- Mary Oliver

"And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. ‘Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?’"

- Mary Oliver

"It’s not a competition, it’s a doorway."

- Mary Oliver

"It is a serious thing — just to be alive — on this fresh morning — in this broken world."

- Mary Oliver

"If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate … joy is not made to be a crumb"

- Mary Oliver

"August of another summer, and once again, I am drinking the sun, and the lilies again are spread across the water."

- Mary Oliver

"Throughout everyday experiences, notice small miracles constantly."

- Mary Oliver

"Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."

- Mary Oliver

"Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that."

- Mary Oliver

"For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple."

- Mary Oliver

"Come with me into the woods. Where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible."

- Mary Oliver

"Come with me into the field of sunflowers is a better line than anything you will find here, and the sunflowers themselves far more wonderful than any words about them."

- Mary Oliver

"August of another summer, and once again I am drinking the sun and the lilies again are spread across the water. I know now what they want is to touch each other. Each of us wears a shadow. But just now it is summer again and I am watching the lilies bow to each other, then slide on the wind and the tug of desire, close, close to one another, Soon now, I’ll turn and start for home. And who knows, maybe I’ll be singing."

- Mary Oliver