quotetidien

favorite quotes and passages from my literary meanderings

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And if I come to you, to the door of your comfortable house with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails, will you put something into it? I would like to take this chance. I would like to give you this chance.

Mary Oliver, “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass.” Evidence, 2009.

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Behold, I say---behold the reliability and the finery and the teachings    of this gritty earth gift.

Mary Oliver, “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass.” Evidence, 2009.

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Your clocks, he says plainly, which are always ticking, do not have to be listened to.

Mary Oliver, “Deep Summer.” Evidence, 2009.

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the wholesome happiness of being alive on a patch of this green earth in the deep pleasures of summer.

Mary Oliver, “Deep Summer.” Evidence, 2009.

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To have loved is everything.

Mary Oliver, “Empty Branch in the Orchard.” Evidence, 2009.

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Sometimes I need    only to stand       wherever I am          to be blessed.

Mary Oliver, “It Was Early.” Evidence, 2009.

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And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes    almost forgetting how wondrous the world is       and how miraculously kind some people can be?

Mary Oliver, “Halleluiah.” Evidence, 2009.

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Each of us leaves an unfinished life.

Mary Oliver, “Thinking of Swirler.” Evidence, 2009.

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by time summer   opened its green harbors     the field was nothing but flowers, flowers, flowers.

Mary Oliver, “Prince Buzzard.” Evidence, 2009.

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What we love, shapely and pure,    is not to be held,       but to be believed in.

Mary Oliver, “Swans.” Evidence, 2009.

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But the tree is a sister to me..."

Mary Oliver, “Green, Green Is My Sister’s House.” A Thousand Mornings, 2012.

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their words that would not be held back.

Mary Oliver, “Hum, Hum.” A Thousand Mornings, 2012.

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Some wounds never vanish. Yet little by little I learned to love my life.

Mary Oliver, “Hum, Hum.” A Thousand Mornings, 2012.

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he sings with humor and bravado so I have to wait a long time for the softer voice of his own life to come through.

Mary Oliver, “The Mockingbird.” A Thousand Mornings, 2012.

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I don't say it's easy, but what else will do if the love one claims to have for the world be true?

Mary Oliver, “Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness.” A Thousand Mornings, 2012.

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For some things there are no wrong seasons.

Mary Oliver, “Hurricane.” A Thousand Mornings, 2012.

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And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.

Mary Oliver, “Foolishness? No, It’s Not.” A Thousand Mornings, 2012.