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"Of course! the path to heavendoesn't lie down in flat miles.It's in the imaginationwith which you perceive this world,and the gestureswith which you honor it.-from The Swan."
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Exlpore more Imagination quotes

"When you are very rational, you may not be able to dream or live in a fairy tale."

"Fairytales are healthy for the children. As they grow up, the magical thinking wears off, but the fairytale-induced creative brain circuits stay forever."

"Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young."

"How crazy it would be if the moon did spin and the earth stood still and the sun went dim!How absolutely ludicrous if snakes could walk and kids could fly and mimes did talk!How silly it would be if the nights were tan and the mornings green and the sun cyan!How totally ridiculous if horses chirped and spiders sang and ladies burped!How shocking it would be if the dragons ruled and the knights were daft but the fish were schooled!How utterly preposterous if rain were dry and snowflakes warm and real men cried!I love to just imagineall the lows as heights,and the salty, sweet,and our lefts as rights.Perhaps it is incredibleand off the hook,but it all makes sensein a storybook!"

"I mean, public libraries like this one were always short of money, so building even the tiniest of labyrinths had to be beyond their means."

"If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip."

"A tree house, to me, is the most royal palace in the world."

"You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table."

"The world cannot be translated, It can only be dreamed of and touched."

"There was a moment of silence as they imagined a future in which there existed an organisation that stole imagination for, undoubtedly, a sinister plan."
Explore more quotes by Mary Oliver


"It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be."


"Winter walks up and down the town swinging his censer, but no smoke or sweetness comes from it, only the sour, metallic frankness of salt and snow."


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


"In your handsThe dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive.Who would argue otherwise?But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that.What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines?Listen, all you have to do is start and There'll be no stopping.What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks?And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take yearsBefore, finally, you hear them?"


"Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads."


"Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face.Hello, you who made the morningand spread it over the fieldsand into the faces of the tulipsand the nodding morning glories,and into the windows of, even, themiserable and the crotchety " best preacher that ever was,dear star, that just happensto be where you are in the universeto keep us from ever-darkness,to ease us with warm touching,to hold us in the great hands of light "good morning, good morning, good morning.Watch, now, how I start the dayin happiness, in kindness."


"So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing,and put your lips to the world.And live your life."


"I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think-no, you will realize-that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your heart had been saying."
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