Quote

The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention. I don't say this without reckoning in the sorrow, the worry, the many diminishments. But surely it is then that a person's character shines or glooms.

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
Also
Surely
Character
Shining
Persons
Sorrow
Person
Worth
Without
Worry
Many
Attention
Reckoning
Life
Nature
Gloom
Ends
Shines

More quotes by 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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I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.
Mary Oliver
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Life is much the same when it's going well-- resonant and unremarkable. But who, not under disaster's seal, can understand what life is like when it begins to crumble?
Mary Oliver
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Attention is the beginning of devotion.
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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The language of the poem is the language of particulars.
Mary Oliver
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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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... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers.
Mary Oliver
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I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.
Mary Oliver
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I learned to build bookshelves and brought books to my room, gathering them around me thickly. I read by day and into the night. I thought about perfectibility, and deism, and adjectives, and clouds, and the foxes, I locked my door, from the inside, and leaped from the roof and went to the woods, by day or darkness.
Mary Oliver
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I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.
Mary Oliver
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One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.
Mary Oliver
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So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.
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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There is only one question: / how to love this world.
Mary Oliver
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The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
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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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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It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone.
Mary Oliver