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The sea isn't a place but a fact, and a mystery.
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
Mystery
Fact
Facts
Nature
Place
Sea
More quotes by Mary Oliver
I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea.
Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Mary Oliver
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
Mary Oliver
Attention is the beginning of devotion.
Mary Oliver
Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift.
Mary Oliver
I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.
Mary Oliver
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible.
Mary Oliver
Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Mary Oliver
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
Look for verbs of muscle, adjectives of exactitude.
Mary Oliver
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
There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay.
Mary Oliver
Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Mary Oliver
Every word is a messenger. Some have wings some are filled with fire some are filled with death.
Mary Oliver
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
Mary Oliver
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
Always there is something worth saying about glory, about gratitude.
Mary Oliver
... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers.
Mary Oliver
So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray.
Mary Oliver
