My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work. Mary Oliver More Quotes by Mary Oliver More Quotes From Mary Oliver Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response. Mary Oliver groups giving-up writing It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone. Mary Oliver writing morning thinking The poet must not only write the poem but must scrutinize the world intensely, or anyway that part of the world he or she has taken for subject. If the poem is thin, it is likely so not because the poet does not know enough words, but because he or she has not stood long enough among the flowers--has not seen them in any fresh, exciting, and valid way. Mary Oliver flower taken writing And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain. Mary Oliver want rain letting-go My work is loving the world. Mary Oliver world I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive. Mary Oliver self mind tree Look for verbs of muscle, adjectives of exactitude. Mary Oliver adjectives verbs poetry Attention is the beginning of devotion. Mary Oliver devotion motivational attention How heron comes It is a negligence of the mind not to notice how at dusk heron comes to the pond and stands there in his death robes, perfect servant of the system, hungry, his eyes full of attention, his wings pure light Mary Oliver light eye wings I learned to build bookshelves and brought books to my room, gathering them around me thickly. I read by day and into the night. I thought about perfectibility, and deism, and adjectives, and clouds, and the foxes, I locked my door, from the inside, and leaped from the roof and went to the woods, by day or darkness. Mary Oliver doors night book Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist. Mary Oliver mountain doe believe maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us-- Mary Oliver light darkness death We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading, walking around the woods in Ohio, where I grew up. Mary Oliver reading heart writing I have trouble with some books because I'm so much in agreement with them I'd rather just sit in the grass myself. Mary Oliver agreement trouble book I grew up in a sad, depressed place. I got out. Poetry saved my life. Mary Oliver sad-depressed grew grew-up When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider the orderliness of the world. Mary Oliver orderliness loneliness world The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones. Mary Oliver poet challenges And over one more set of hills, along the sea, the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness and are giving it back to the world. If I had another life I would want to spend it all on some unstinting happiness. Mary Oliver flower sea giving Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine Mary Oliver wild-geese mines despair ...whoever you are, not matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh & exciting - over & over announcing your place in the family of things. Mary Oliver lonely nature imagination
