Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" 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
Related Quotes:
" 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
" Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? "
Mary Oliver
You
Plan
Life
" 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 simply do not distinguish between work and play. "
Mary Oliver
Simply
Work
Between
" Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious. "
Mary Oliver
Conscious
Unconscious
Work
" 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
" 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
" People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work. "
Mary Oliver
Want
Fancy
Need
" I always feel that whatever isn't necessary shouldn't be in a poem. "
Mary Oliver
Always
Feel
Necessary
" Writers must... take care of the sensibility that houses the possibility of poems. "
Mary Oliver
Houses
Care
Take Care
" You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul. "
Mary Oliver
You
Soul
Fool
" To tell you the truth, I believe everything - tigers, trees, stones - are sentient in one way or another. You'd never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example. "
Mary Oliver
Me
Believe
You
" You have to be in the world to understand what the spiritual is about, and you have to be spiritual in order to truly be able to accept what the world is about. "
Mary Oliver
Order
World
Spiritual
" 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
" Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound. "
Mary Oliver
Own
Quality
Only
" 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
" 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
" My parents didn't care very much what I did, and that was probably a blessing. "
Mary Oliver
Did
Much
Blessing
" I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded. "
Mary Oliver
Much
Noticed
Sort
" Poetry is meant to be heard. "
Mary Oliver
Heard
Poetry
Meant
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us. "
Mary Oliver
I Believe
Us
Art
" In college, you learn how to learn. Four years is not too much time to spend at that. "
Mary Oliver
College
Learn
Time
" 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
" 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've always wanted to write poems and nothing else. "
Mary Oliver
Nothing
Else
Always
" 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