Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" 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
Stop
Walk
Words
Related Quotes:
" I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it. "
Mary Oliver
Now
Feeling
Dance
" I read Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, every day. "
Mary Oliver
Every Day
Day
Read
" I would rather write poems than prose, any day, any place. Yet each has its own force. "
Mary Oliver
Force
Rather
Place
" My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work. "
Mary Oliver
Early
Books
Work
" Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. "
Mary Oliver
Small
Love
Life
" Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they're thirsty. That's prayer. They don't live an unconscious life, they simply have no language to talk about these things. But they are grateful for the good things that come along. "
Mary Oliver
Prayer
Day
Good
" 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
Life
You
Beach
" One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear. "
Mary Oliver
Know
Understood
Poetry
" 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
Kind
Music
Myself
" I acknowledge my feeling and gratitude for life by praising the world and whoever made all these things. "
Mary Oliver
World
Feeling
Gratitude
" In college, you learn how to learn. Four years is not too much time to spend at that. "
Mary Oliver
College
Learn
Time
" To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. "
Mary Oliver
Love
Life
Live
" I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things. "
Mary Oliver
Curious
You
Material Things
" People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work. "
Mary Oliver
Want
Fancy
Need
" I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing. "
Mary Oliver
Duty
Line
Love
" I was very careful never to take an interesting job. If you have an interesting job, you get interested in it. "
Mary Oliver
Job
Interesting
You
" I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded. "
Mary Oliver
Much
Noticed
Sort
" I like books that are fat and full. "
Mary Oliver
Books
Full
Fat
" I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else. "
Mary Oliver
Nothing
Else
Always
" You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul. "
Mary Oliver
You
Soul
Fool
" My parents didn't care very much what I did, and that was probably a blessing. "
Mary Oliver
Did
Much
Blessing
" I simply do not distinguish between work and play. "
Mary Oliver
Simply
Work
Between
" I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation. "
Mary Oliver
World
Childhood
Family
" There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty. "
Mary Oliver
People
Children
Know
" Instead of taking the reader by the hand and running him down the hill, I want to lead him into a house of many rooms, and leave him alone in each of them. "
Mary Oliver
House
Want
Hill
" 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. "
Mary Oliver
You
Too Much
Know
" When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. "
Mary Oliver
World
My Life
Life
" I'd rather write about polar bears than people. "
Mary Oliver
Polar
Than
People
" I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings. "
Mary Oliver
Writing
Working
Trying
" Believe me, if anybody has a job and starts at 9, there's no reason why they can't get up at 4:30 or five and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day - which is what I did. "
Mary Oliver
Effort
Reason
Me