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

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
Love
Slowly
Goes
Also
Able
Wanted

More quotes by Mary Oliver

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One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.
Mary Oliver
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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
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Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Mary Oliver
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The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building.
Mary Oliver
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What can we do but keep on breathing in and out, modest and willing, and in our places?
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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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
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It is the nature of stone to be satisfied. It is the nature of water to want to be somewhere else.
Mary Oliver
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All my life I have been restless-- I have felt there is something more wonderful than gloss-- than wholeness-- than staying at home.
Mary Oliver
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Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving
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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The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones.
Mary Oliver
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Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.
Mary Oliver
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Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dak trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more the prettiness.
Mary Oliver
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I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.
Mary Oliver
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You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without doubt,I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Mary Oliver
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Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields...Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
Mary Oliver
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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.
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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You must not ever stop being whimsical.
Mary Oliver