Mary Oliver Quotes

Powerful Mary Oliver for Daily Growth

About Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was an influential American poet, essayist, and naturalist whose works deeply explored humanity's relationship with nature. Born in Maple Heights, Ohio, she spent much of her childhood wandering the woods near her home, an experience that would later inspire her prolific literary career. After graduating from Ohio State University in 1957, Oliver taught high school for several years before publishing her first collection, "No Ontological Raptures: Poems" (1963). However, it was her second book, "The Beast of the Net and Other Poems" (1968), which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, that brought her widespread attention. Throughout her career, Oliver's poetry reflected her deep connection to nature and its inhabitants. Her works often featured simple, evocative language and a profound sense of wonder. Some of her most celebrated collections include "American Primitive" (1983), "House of Light" (1990), and "New and Selected Poems: Volume One" (1992). Oliver's poetry transcended the realm of literature, touching millions of readers with its universal themes of love, loss, and the interconnectedness of all living things. Her quote, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" from her poem 'The Summer Day', has become a timeless mantra for those seeking meaning and purpose in their lives. Oliver's influence extends beyond poetry, as she was also a prolific essayist. Her essays explored the spiritual dimensions of nature, offering readers insightful reflections on life, death, love, and creativity. She passed away in 2019, leaving behind an enduring legacy that continues to inspire readers around the world.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

This quote by Mary Oliver invites us to consider the purpose and significance of our lives. It encourages us to reflect on how we intend to use our one unique, valuable, and passionate existence. The quote is a poignant reminder that life is short, wild, and precious, prompting us to live intentionally, passionately, and meaningfully.

"Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."

Mary Oliver's quote offers three essential instructions for living a meaningful life: 1. Pay Attention: This means to be mindful, to focus on the present moment, and to observe the world around us with curiosity and intentionality. In doing so, we are better equipped to appreciate the beauty and complexity of our surroundings. 2. Be Astonished: Once we have paid attention, we should allow ourselves to be moved by what we see. This could mean feeling wonder, awe, or even fear, but it is a call to experience life with an open heart and mind. 3. Tell About It: Share your experiences and the lessons you've learned from them with others. By doing so, you not only preserve these moments for yourself, but also enrich the lives of those around you. This act of storytelling creates connections between people and helps foster a sense of community.

"The world often seems too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."

This quote by Mary Oliver reflects a sense of longing for connection with nature amidst the overwhelming pace and materialism of modern life. The "world" refers to both the physical environment and the demands placed upon us by society. The speaker feels that this constant focus on acquiring and spending, often at the expense of personal growth and spiritual well-being, leads to a depletion or waste of our inner resources. This quote calls for reflection on the importance of finding balance between our material pursuits and the nourishment we derive from connecting with nature and our own inner selves.

"You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

This quote by Mary Oliver encourages individuals to embrace their emotions authentically, allowing their innermost feelings – symbolized as a "soft animal" – to guide them towards what truly resonates within. Essentially, she's inviting us to let go of inhibitions and fear, so we can genuinely connect with the things that stir our soul, fostering a more fulfilling and meaningful existence.

"I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is to be true to one's own nature."

This quote highlights the significance of self-awareness and authenticity in life. The poet, Mary Oliver, suggests that being true to oneself (one's own nature) transcends other essential qualities like discipline and creativity. It underscores the importance of understanding one's inherent character, values, passions, and beliefs, and living accordingly. In essence, she emphasizes the need for personal integrity and honesty in our journey through life.

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

Bicycle, Young, Recently, Adult

So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray.

- Mary Oliver

Swim, You, How, Inward

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

Other, Which, Nevertheless, Realizing

My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work.

- Mary Oliver

Work, Okay, Comfortably, Early

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

My Life, Profession, Very, Early

To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it.

- Mary Oliver

New, Alert, Accurate, New Word

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

Believe, Tell, Another, Tigers

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, Going, Spiritually, Cluttered

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

Die, One Day, Going, Stone

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

Give, Sometimes, About, Group

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver

Me, Precious, Tell, Precious Life

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

Work, Play, Grow, Earnestly

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

Could, One Of The Things, Possibly

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. I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading, walking around the woods in Ohio, where I grew up.

- Mary Oliver

Deal, One Of The Things, Possibly

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

Think, Kind, Like, Choreography

I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings.

- Mary Oliver

Myself, Giving, Years, Readings

My parents didn't care very much what I did, and that was probably a blessing.

- Mary Oliver

Very, Much, Did, Blessing

Almost anything is too much. I am trying in my poems to have the reader be the experiencer. I do not want to be there. It is not even a walk we take together.

- Mary Oliver

Want, Almost, Reader, Almost Anything

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

Think, Personal, Reader, So-Called

Poetry is meant to be heard.

- Mary Oliver

Poetry, Heard, Meant, Meant To Be

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

Love, Think, Very, Observing

Writers must... take care of the sensibility that houses the possibility of poems.

- Mary Oliver

Poems, Take, Sensibility, Possibility

One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear.

- Mary Oliver

Know, Clear, One Thing, Understood

I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.

- Mary Oliver

Social, Might, Read, Privately

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

Good, Language, About, Good Things

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

World, Understand, Able, Order

I grew up in a confused house: too much unwanted attention or none at all.

- Mary Oliver

Attention, Confused, Too, Unwanted

I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them.

- Mary Oliver

Poems, Lot, Read, Respond

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

Reason, Anybody, Couple, No Reason

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

Amazing, Bride, Over, Taking

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

Want, Rooms, Reader, Taking

I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.

- Mary Oliver

Know, Poem, Release, Unfinished

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

India, Feeling, Holy, Useful

I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life.

- Mary Oliver

My Life, Think, I Think, Useful

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

Work, Believe, About, Vanish

Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious.

- Mary Oliver

Some, Unconscious, Walks, Enter

I'd rather write about polar bears than people.

- Mary Oliver

Rather, Than, Polar, Bears

I acknowledge my feeling and gratitude for life by praising the world and whoever made all these things.

- Mary Oliver

Life, Feeling, Made, Praising

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

Words, Finally, Going, Scribbling

I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it.

- Mary Oliver

Through, Lot, Tap, Poets

The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones.

- Mary Oliver

Love, New, Old, Poets

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, Depends, Against, To Love

Apparently, I've been considered a recluse.

- Mary Oliver

Been, Apparently, Considered, Recluse

I simply do not distinguish between work and play.

- Mary Oliver

Work, Play, Distinguish, Simply

Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules.

- Mary Oliver

Rules, Sometimes, Breaking, Extending

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

Childhood, Salvation, Very, Dysfunctional

I read Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, every day.

- Mary Oliver

Every Day, Poet, Read, Persian

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

Over, Okay, Hours, Few

I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.

- Mary Oliver

Alone, Left, Very, Succeeded

Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound.

- Mary Oliver

Kind, Sound, Own, Quality

I always feel that whatever isn't necessary shouldn't be in a poem.

- Mary Oliver

Feel, Always, Necessary, Poem

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.

- Mary Oliver

Line, Very, I Write, Instantly

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

Wait, Very, I Write, Instantly

In college, you learn how to learn. Four years is not too much time to spend at that.

- Mary Oliver

College, Learn, How, Four

I would rather write poems than prose, any day, any place. Yet each has its own force.

- Mary Oliver

Own, Rather, Prose, Force

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

My Life, Private, Spectacle, Full

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

Original, Within, Began, Did

I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.

- Mary Oliver

Art, Important, Utterly

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

- Mary Oliver

Work, Pay Attention, Pay, Attention

You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul.

- Mary Oliver

Soul, Yourself, Lot, Fool

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

Love, Gift, Small, Dogs

I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.

- Mary Oliver

Always, Wanted, Else, Poems

I like books that are fat and full.

- Mary Oliver

Like, Books, Full, Fat

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

Will, Like, Meant, Lasting

People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

- Mary Oliver

Work, Want, Need, Fancy

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

Basket, Profession, Your, Empty

I was very careful never to take an interesting job. If you have an interesting job, you get interested in it.

- Mary Oliver

Never, Very, Take, Interesting

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