Mary Oliver Quotes

Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be
musical inside yourself.

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

I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.

Dogfish

I wanted
The past to go away, I wanted
To leave it, like another country; I wanted
My life to close, and open
Like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
Where it falls
Down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
To hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
Whoever I was, I was

Alive
For a little while.

…mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
Or mean,
For a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
Swim through the fires to stay in
This world.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live
your life.

I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.

to leap into it and hold on, connecting everything,

Therefore, dark past,
I’m about to do it.
I’m about to forgive you

for everything.

I began to pick through the red rivers
of confusion;

I began to take apart
the deep stitches
of nightmares.

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

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

Be what you are, of the earth, but a dreamer too.

Things take the time they take.
Don't worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?

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.

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.