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" I simply do not distinguish between work and play. "
Mary Oliver
Simply
Work
Between
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" I always feel that whatever isn't necessary shouldn't be in a poem. "
Mary Oliver
Always
Feel
Necessary
" I read Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, every day. "
Mary Oliver
Every Day
Day
Read
" I'm going to die one day. I know it's coming for me, too. I'll be a mountain, I'll be a stone on the beach. I'll be nourishment. "
Mary Oliver
Know
Day
Die
" I like books that are fat and full. "
Mary Oliver
Books
Full
Fat
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished. "
Mary Oliver
Poem
Finished
Know
" 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
" The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones. "
Mary Oliver
Challenge
Time
New
" 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
" 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
" To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it. "
Mary Oliver
Find
Different
Alert
" My parents didn't care very much what I did, and that was probably a blessing. "
Mary Oliver
Did
Much
Blessing
" As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other. "
Mary Oliver
World
Alive
Me
" I acknowledge my feeling and gratitude for life by praising the world and whoever made all these things. "
Mary Oliver
World
Feeling
Gratitude
" I went to India and was quite taken with it. There's a feeling there that things are holy first and useful second. "
Mary Oliver
First
India
Feeling
" Poetry is meant to be heard. "
Mary Oliver
Heard
Poetry
Meant
" 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 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
" To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. "
Mary Oliver
Our
Attention
Work
" I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life. "
Mary Oliver
Life
Become
Think
" So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray. "
Mary Oliver
You
Flow
How
" 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
" I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us. "
Mary Oliver
I Believe
Us
Art
" 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
" Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? "
Mary Oliver
You
Plan
Life
" 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
" If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like. "
Mary Oliver
Worth
Earth
People