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Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift.

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
Gift
Small
Joyfulness
Increased
Dog

More quotes by Mary Oliver

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After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world.
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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... the natural world is the old river that runs through everything, and I think poets will forever fish along its shores.
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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.
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Attention is the beginning of devotion.
Mary Oliver
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I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.
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He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.
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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Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
Mary Oliver
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When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
Mary Oliver
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Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
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One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.
Mary Oliver
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My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast there the blue plums.
Mary Oliver
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And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?
Mary Oliver
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People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.
Mary Oliver
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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.
Mary Oliver
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It's not a competition, it's a doorway.
Mary Oliver
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Today I am altogether without ambition. Where did I get such wisdom?
Mary Oliver
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I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea.
Mary Oliver
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A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.
Mary Oliver