I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings. Mary Oliver More Quotes by Mary Oliver More Quotes From Mary Oliver When it's over I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. Mary Oliver real wonder want ... the natural world is the old river that runs through everything, and I think poets will forever fish along its shores. Mary Oliver rivers running thinking I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings. Mary Oliver reading writing years Almost anything is too much. I am trying in my poems to have the reader be the experiencer. I do not want to be there. It is not even a walk we take together. Mary Oliver together want trying I was very careful never to take an interesting job. If you have an interesting job, you get interested in it. Mary Oliver careful jobs interesting Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty. Mary Oliver growing-up play children The world is: fun, and familiar, and healthful, and unbelievably refreshing, and lovely. And it is the theater of the spiritual; it is the multiform utterly obedient to a mystery. Mary Oliver lovely spiritual fun On the beach, at dawn: Four small stones clearly Hugging each other. How many kinds of love Might there be in the world, And how many formations might they make And who am I ever To imagine I could know Such a marvelous business? When the sun broke It poured willingly its light Over the stones That did not move, not at all, Just as, to its always generous term, It shed its light on me, My own body that loves, Equally, to hug another body. Mary Oliver light beach moving I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea. Mary Oliver red terror ideas Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine cone You never know What opportunity Is going to travel to you, Or through you. Once a friend gave me A small pine cone- One of a few He found in the scat Of a grizzly In Utah maybe, Or Wyoming. I took it home And did what I supposed He was sure I would do- I ate it, Thinking How it had traveled Through that rough And holy body. It was crisp and sweet. It was almost a prayer Without words. My gratitude, Tom Dancer, For this gift of the world I adore so much And want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear Mary Oliver gratitude prayer sweet I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life. Mary Oliver prayer interesting thinking I took one look and fell, hook and tumble. Mary Oliver hook looks If I've done my work well, I vanish completely from the scene. I believe it is invasive of the work when you know too much about the writer. Mary Oliver too-much done believe ... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers. Mary Oliver best-teacher writing teacher We do not love anything more deeply than we love a story. Mary Oliver stories Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents. Mary Oliver adjectives-and-adverbs cents fifty I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing one used to be. It's impossible not to remember wild an want it back. Mary Oliver break-out want trying I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life. Mary Oliver powerful writing thinking I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else. Mary Oliver wanted writing Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. Mary Oliver gift dog love life
