# Mary Oliver

- Quotes: 17
- Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver

## Books

- [Blue Iris](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/blue-iris.md) — 1 quote
- [Dream Work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/dream-work.md) — 2 quotes
- [Evidence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/evidence.md) — 4 quotes
- [House of Light](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/house-of-light.md) — 1 quote
- [Red Bird](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/red-bird.md) — 6 quotes
- [Thirst](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/thirst.md) — 2 quotes
- [Why I Wake Early](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/why-i-wake-early.md) — 1 quote

## Recently added quotes

> Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/evidence/keep-some-room.md)

> Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.
>
> But all beautiful things, inherently, have this function —
>
> to excite the viewers toward sublime thought.
>
> Glory to the world, that good teacher.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/evidence/beauty-without-purpose.md)

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

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/red-bird/instructions-for-living.md)

> Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
>
> Each time it seemed to solve everything.
>
> Each time it solved a great many things
>
> but not everything.
>
> Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
>
> thoroughly, solved everything.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/red-bird/two-or-three.md)

> Among the swans there is none called the least,
>
> or the greatest.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/evidence/among-the-swans.md)

> So every day
>
> I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
>
> of the ideas of God,one of which was you.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/red-bird/so-every-day.md)

> I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/evidence/i-believe-in-kindness.md)

> I don't know what God is.
>
> I don't know what death is.But I believe they have between them
>
> some fervent and necessary arrangement.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/red-bird/i-dont-know.md)

> Death waits for me, I know it, around
>
> one corner or another.
>
> This doesn't amuse me.
>
> Neither does it frighten me. After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
>
> It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
>
> I walked slowly, and listened to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/red-bird/death-waits-for.md)

> then you too are a dream which last night and the night before that
>
> and the years before that
>
> you were not.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/red-bird/then-you-too.md)

> You do not have to be good.
>
> You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
>
> You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/dream-work/you-do-not.md)

> My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-oliver/thirst/my-work-is-loving.md)