Mary Oliver Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I quite like the drama of an encore. I think an encore is for those artists who are inclined to do dramatic gestures, and I certainly would say I am inclined towards them.
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It is hard enough to make a plan for how you are going to spend an evening with somebody else. So to make a plan for how you are going to behave in 25 years seems based on a view of life that is incomprehensible to me.
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I learned at an early age that I was given something special when I was born, and that was the gift of music.
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When I learned that flour pound for pound has as many calories as sugar, and that when eating pasta you're basically eating cake, I was size 23, and my neck was restricting my breathing, and so I got on a microbiotic diet and got myself an exercise bike.
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My grandpa would come in with water and flick it on our faces at 6 A.M. and be like, 'If you don't get up to feed the horses, you don't get to ride them.' We'd get up.
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Even a beautiful piece of work can be overshadowed, destroyed, by something else.
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I feel like I've accomplished everything I could in the dunk contest. It would be hard for me to go back and outdo myself.
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Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
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I went out of my way to try not to be an artist, because I thought I would end up leading a miserable, obscure life. I tried to escape it for as long as I could, until I had to admit at 25 that that was my path.
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To communicate the truths of history is an act of hope for the future.
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I grew up in a very strong, nuclear family. My father was a sportsman. He represented South Africa in a couple of sports, so he was a very positive person and someone who encouraged you to be your best and give your best with everything that you do.
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Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.
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You know, no one steered people's careers in those days, I don't think, like they do today.
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If the characters on 'The West Wing' were watching a TV show wherein a character like Trump was leading in the polls, they wouldn't find it believable.
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This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex.
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Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.
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I'm a huge fan of the Clintons. I love Hillary; I love Bill.
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My life is full of mistakes. They're like pebbles that make a good road.
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I started as an engineer. I migrated to philosophy and international politics. And I did my studies about African – Africa democracy and democratization in Africa, taking Kenya as a model. And then, while I was doing so in 1996 in South Africa, Al Jazeera was established. So they requested me to be an analyst on African affairs.
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I have a publishing company of books by me and books of others. It drew people to poetry readings and photo exhibitions and painting exhibitions that I've been doing for years before that.
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Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form.
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To my deprivation, to my sorrow, sinew was brave. The world would not be if not for my offspring. I am a bard to be praised. The unskilful May he be possessed by the ravens and eagle and bird of wrath.
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On the subject of emigration, it is not my intention to dwell at any length.
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Poetry is meant to be heard.
