Mary Oliver Quotes

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

Mary Oliver

• Life
• Poetry

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Quotes to Explore

• When I went to college, I was so focused on this new experience of my life that I really just pushed down all of my fears of hell and damnation.

  

  Maggie Rowe
  • Life
  • Experience
  • College

• Frank Capra, Hollywood's Horatio Alger, lights with more cinematic know-how and zeal than any other director to convince movie audiences that American life is exactly like the 'Saturday Evening Post' covers of Norman Rockwell. 'It's A Wonderful Life,' the latest example of Capracorn, shows his art at a hysterical pitch.

  

  Manny Farber
  • Life
  • Art
  • American

• Let me tell you something - being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory.

  

  Halle Berry
  • Life
  • Love
  • Beautiful

• I know someone from growing up who is in jail right now for the rest of his life, but he was one of the sweetest people I ever knew.

  

  Mahershala Ali
  • People
  • Life
  • Up

• Because of where I come from, I never thought I'd see in my life a black candidate running for President.

  

  Samuel L. Jackson
  • Life
  • Black
  • Running

• I have a really beautiful life right now, so there is no reason to be hostile. I'm a husband, a father and a man who tries to do the right thing in life and in my work.

  

  Ice Cube
  • Life
  • Work
  • Father

• When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.

  

  Dalai Lama
  • Life
  • Real
  • Hope

• There must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.

  

  Sam Harris
  • People
  • Life
  • Important

• I think poetry's always a kind of faith. It is the kind that I have.

  

  Natasha Trethewey
  • Think
  • Faith
  • Poetry

• I never worked in an office in my life.

  

  Jack Vance
  • Life
  • Never
  • My Life

• Most people figured I'd be in jail. I've been proving people wrong my whole life.

  

  Gary Sheffield
  • People
  • Life
  • Jail

• One child is never enough for a monarch.

  

  Kate Williams
  • Never
  • Child
  • Enough

• I guess I was a mom so late in life, my daughter was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

  

  Candice Bergen
  • Life
  • Mom
  • Daughter

• A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.

  

  Yevgeny Yevtushenko
  • Poetry
  • Poet
  • Anything

• Working out should be a key part of your life but not your whole life. When it is all a man could talk about, it becomes too much.

  

  Valerie Azlynn
  • Life
  • Man
  • Too Much

• The original 'Star Wars' that I was a part of really was the beginning of my working life.

  

  Harrison Ford
  • Life
  • Star
  • Beginning

• In mid-life the man wants to see how irresistible he still is to younger women. How they turn their hearts to stone and more or less commit a murder of their marriage I just don't know, but they do.

  

  Earl Warren
  • Life
  • Women
  • Man

• I did theatre all my life and then went into the film world. I then kind of segued into TV land, which is a different experience.

  

  T. J. Thyne
  • Life
  • World
  • Different

• 'Party Down' was one of the most magical, special experiences of my professional career. Also special in my personal life, too. I made really good friends, and I had just a great time, and it was a great part.

  

  Ken Marino
  • Life
  • Time
  • Good

• Anything that's given to you can be taken away from you at any time.

  

  Malik Jackson
  • Time
  • You
  • Taken

• The moon is a loyal companion.

  

  Tahereh Mafi
  • Strong
  • Mean
  • Dark

• I'm shy. I am. I mean, if I get around, you know, in a room of a bunch of people especially I - you know, I don't know or - it takes me a while to warm up. I'm - and the real me, I'm not as witty as, you know, as the comic Wanda. The comic, she's had time to work on some things.

  

  Wanda Sykes
  • Work
  • Real
  • Witty

• You look at the steamboat, the railroad, the car, the airplane - not all of these were invented in the Anglo-American world, but they were popularized and extended by it. They were made possible by the financial architecture, the capital intensive operations invented and developed by the Anglo-Americans.

  

  Walter Russell Mead
  • World
  • American
  • Car

• Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

  

  Mary Oliver
  • Life
  • Poetry