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I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

Mary Oliver

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Mary Oliver
Age: 83 †
Born: 1935
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: January 17
Climate Activist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Maple Heights
Ohio
Mary Jane Oliver
Singing
Especially
Also
Believe
Prescribed
Mischief
Necessarily
Kindness

More quotes by Mary Oliver

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Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.
Mary Oliver
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There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But who wants easier?
Mary Oliver
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It's not a competition, it's a doorway.
Mary Oliver
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As long as you're dancing, you can break the rules.
Mary Oliver
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On poetry: Everyone wants to know what it means. But nobody is asking, How does it feel?
Mary Oliver
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I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.
Mary Oliver
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You must not ever stop being whimsical.
Mary Oliver
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I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere I finally just stop and write.
Mary Oliver
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Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! What a task to ask of anything, or anyone, yet it is ours, and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.
Mary Oliver
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The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own.
Mary Oliver
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Isn’t it wonderful the way the world holds both the deeply serious, and the unexpectedly mirthful?
Mary Oliver
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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
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At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?
Mary Oliver
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I know death is the fascinating snake under the leaves, sliding and sliding I know the heart loves him too, can't turn away, can't break the spell. Everything wants to enter the slow thickness, aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost. Wants to be stone.
Mary Oliver
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Wild sings the bird of the heart in the forests of our lives.
Mary Oliver
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Attention is the beginning of devotion.
Mary Oliver
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I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet I just get up and write.
Mary Oliver
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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.
Mary Oliver
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Belief isn't always easy. But this much I have learned--- if not enough else--- to live with my eyes open.
Mary Oliver
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So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray.
Mary Oliver