How heron comes It is a negligence of the mind not to notice how at dusk heron comes to the pond bandstands there in his death robes, perfect servant of the system, hungry, his eyesfull of attention, his wings pure light

— Mary Oliver

How perfect to be aboard a ship with maybe a hundred years still in my pocket. But it's late, for all of us, and in truth the only ship there Isis the ship we are all on burning the world as we go.

— Mary Oliver

I believe you did not have a happy life. I believe you were cheated. I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery. I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression. I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling. I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger. I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all. I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your bitterness. I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and assuaged. Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillsides.

— Mary Oliver

I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.

— Mary Oliver

I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea.

— Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can be never redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)

— Mary Oliver

I have a little dog who likes to nap with me. He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck. He is sweeter than soap. He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace, which can't even bark...

— Mary Oliver

I know many lives worth living.

— Mary Oliver

I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple--or a green field--a place to enter, and in which to feel.

— Mary Oliver

I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple -- or a green field -- a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing -- an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness --wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak --to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed.

— Mary Oliver