Mary Oliver Quotes & Sayings

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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 have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.”

“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.”

“I simply do not distinguish between work and play.”

“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.”

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

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