Quote

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

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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
Poet
Mist
Went
Pale
High
Poets
Understand
Mountains
Comes
Wherever
Doe
China
Believe
Mountain
Busyness
World
Offers
Crept

More quotes by Mary Oliver

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Like Magellan, let us find our islands To die in, far from home, from anywhere Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.
Mary Oliver
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You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.
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Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
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Wild sings the bird of the heart in the forests of our lives.
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A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.
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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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So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray.
Mary Oliver
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All eternity is in the moment.
Mary Oliver
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A dog is adorable and noble, a dog is a true and loving friend. A dog is also a hedonist.
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.
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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.
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All night my heart makes its way however it can over the rough ground of uncertainties, but only until night meets and then is overwhelmed by morning, the light deepening, the wind easing and just waiting, as I too wait (and when have I ever been disappointed?) for redbird to sing
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Everybody has to have their little tooth of power. Everybody wants to be able to bite.
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My work is loving the world.
Mary Oliver
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As long as you're dancing, you can break the rules.
Mary Oliver
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I know many lives worth living.
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I want to be braver and more honest about my life. When you're sexually abused, there's a lot of damage.
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You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.
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Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Mary Oliver
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...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