Mary Oliver Quotes
I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it.
Quotes to Explore
-
I've got plenty of quirks. I go to an office early in the morning. Early in the morning is really good writing time. I take anywhere between six to eight showers a day. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not a germaphobe: it's all about a fresh start.
-
I read my books to writing workshops and friends, and I'm often focussed just on keeping them entertained. I never think about marketing at all.
-
I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.
-
When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.
-
I can be collaborative, for instance, in situations where I go and study the artist's work before I start writing. Then I can at least try to write towards their style.
-
Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.
-
Personal relationships are usually my biggest inspirations for writing my songs. The best way for me to write a song is to visualise the story in my head, and I start humming a melody, and before you know it, a song is born.
-
Lately I've been feeling like 50 percent of the great content I read comes from Twitter conversations.
-
As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.
-
Shame is the feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.
-
I still get recognized. It's flattering, but it can be uncomfortable. Maybe because it only seems to happen when I'm looking and feeling crappy.
-
If you have two good off spinners, what is the problem in playing both of them.
-
The best part about being married is feeling centered. Nothing else matters so much as long as you can come home and be with your family.
-
Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture, although that sounds weird. It acquires its character and its depth as it goes along.
-
There's no such thing as a writer's block. If you're having trouble writing, well, pick up the pen and write. No matter what, keep that hand moving. Writing is really a physical activity.
-
Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments.
-
I'm a pretty easygoing person, and it bleeds into the music. Even if I'm writing the most personal song, it's not going to come out totally serious; there's always a little tongue in the cheek.
-
It's a rare and special feeling to ride a racehorse.
-
How shall we define a god? Expressed in psychological terms (which are primary-there is no getting behind them) a god is something that gives us the peculiar kind of feeling which Professor Otto has called 'numinous'. Numinous feelings are the original god-stuff from which the theory-making mind extracts the individualised gods of the pantheon.
-
I've done a lot of collaboration over the years, but right now I'm enjoying writing by myself and just being me again for a while.
-
Writing Part of the Scenery has been a very different experience. I have been reminded of people and events, real and imaginary which have been part of my life. This book is a celebration of the land which means so much to me.
-
I regard gratitude as an asset and its absence a major interpersonal flaw.
-
We are to come to Christ. This is the primal duty. The doctrines are but highways that lead to Him. But when we come to Christ we must receive Him as our Saviour.
-
I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it.
