Quote

And over one more set of hills, along the sea, the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness and are giving it back to the world. If I had another life I would want to spend it all on some unstinting happiness.

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
Life
Along
Sweetness
World
Lasts
Factories
Happiness
Opened
Last
Hills
Another
Rose
Back
Sea
Giving
Flower
Would
Spend
Roses

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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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I was hurrying through my own soul . . . I was leaning out . . . I was listening.
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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.
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I know many lives worth living.
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Who do you want to be in your one wild and precious life?
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All eternity is in the moment.
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The language of the poem is the language of particulars.
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Praying It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
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We do not love anything more deeply than we love a story.
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You must not ever stop being whimsical.
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Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
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Poetry is a life-cherishing force.
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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.
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Also I wanted to be able to love And we all know how that one goes, don't we? Slowly
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And it is exceedingly short, his galloping life. Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old-or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give.
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Isn’t it wonderful the way the world holds both the deeply serious, and the unexpectedly mirthful?
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The three ingredients of poetry: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, the energy of language.
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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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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.
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I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.
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