Mary Oliver Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

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

“Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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