"As a child, what captivated me was..." - Quote by Mary Oliver
As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other.
More by Mary Oliver
“Everybody has to have their little tooth of power. Everybody wants to be able to bite.”
“Life is much the same when it's going well-- resonant and unremarkable. But who, not under disaster's seal, can understand what life is like when it begins to crumble?”
“Drive down any road, take a train or an airplane across the world, leave your old life behind, die and be born again~ wherever you arrive they'll be there first, glossy and rowdy and indistinguishable. The deep muscle of the world.”
More on Poetry
“Of course there is matter for remark in poems. Nobody denies that. But it must be solemnly laid on everybody in this world to make his own observations and remarks. That's what we mean by thinking, and that's about all we mean. A teacher says to a pupil "Watch me notice a few things in the next few months: let's see you notice a few things too."”
“Poetry is meant to be heard.”
“He who without the Muse's madness in his soul comes knocking at the door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.”
More on Imagination
“Your imagination is ten times more potent than your willpower. Unleashed, it provides a sense of certainty and tenacious vision that goes far beyond any limitation of the past.”
“The sun got confused about daylight savings time. It rose twice. Everything had two shadows.”
“An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary.”