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" I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished. "
Mary Oliver
Poem
Finished
Know
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" 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 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
" 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 decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life. "
Mary Oliver
Early
Powerful
Think
" I'd rather write about polar bears than people. "
Mary Oliver
Polar
Than
People
" I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life. "
Mary Oliver
Life
Become
Think
" Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response. "
Mary Oliver
Group
Strange
Up
" People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work. "
Mary Oliver
Want
Fancy
Need
" Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules. "
Mary Oliver
Extending
Sometimes
Rules
" The woods that I loved as a child are entirely gone. The woods that I loved as a young adult are gone. The woods that most recently I walked in are not gone, but they're full of bicycle trails. "
Mary Oliver
Young
Bicycle
Child
" You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul. "
Mary Oliver
You
Soul
Fool
" 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
" One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear. "
Mary Oliver
Know
Understood
Poetry
" Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? "
Mary Oliver
You
Plan
Life
" We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. "
Mary Oliver
Hunger
Heart
Happiness
" Poetry is meant to be heard. "
Mary Oliver
Heard
Poetry
Meant
" Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that. "
Mary Oliver
Way
Your
You
" Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth. "
Mary Oliver
Poetry
Earth
Arts
" To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it. "
Mary Oliver
Find
Different
Alert
" At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all. "
Mary Oliver
Perspective
Growing Up
Up
" Wasn't it Emerson who said, 'My life is for itself and not for a spectacle'? I have a happy, full, good life because I hold it private. "
Mary Oliver
Life
Good
Good Life
" 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 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
" I grew up in a confused house: too much unwanted attention or none at all. "
Mary Oliver
Attention
Too Much
Up
" 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
Think
Morning
You
" I simply do not distinguish between work and play. "
Mary Oliver
Simply
Work
Between
" Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound. "
Mary Oliver
Own
Quality
Only
" 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
" I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them. "
Mary Oliver
Lot
Way
Respond
" I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us. "
Mary Oliver
I Believe
Us
Art