Mary Oliver citations

Page 2

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”

“You can have the other words — chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace.”

“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled — to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.”

“I am a performing artist; I perform admiration.
Come with me, I want my poems to say. And do the same.”

“I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything — other people, trees, clouds.”

“Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.
But all beautiful things, inherently, have this function —
to excite the viewers toward sublime thought.
Glory to the world, that good teacher.”

“… there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.”

“Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”

“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.”

“It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.”

“it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.”

“Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.”

“the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own”

“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?”

“I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us…”

“But also I say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness.”

“And now I understand something so frightening, and wonderful — how the mind clings to the road it knows, rushing through crossroads, sticking like lint to the familiar.”

“I know many lives worth living.”

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

“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.”

“Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?”

“Love, love, love, says Percy.
And hurry as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.”

“What misery to be afraid of death.
What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven.”

“Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.”

“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.”

“It's not a competition, it's a doorway.”

“And now you'll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won't be false, and they won't be true
but they'll be real”

“You may not agree, you may not care, but
if you are holding this book you should know that of all the sights I love in this world — and there are plenty — very near the top of the list is this one: dogs without leashes.”

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