"I've always wanted to write poems and..." - Quote by Mary Oliver

“Poetry is meant to be heard.”

“Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.”

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

“The meaning of poetry has no sureness of direction; is like the sling, it is not under control.”

“The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real.”

“Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.”

“In music the passions enjoy themselves.”

“Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.”

“The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam,Our arms are waving, our lips are apart.”