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Exlpore more Wonder quotes
"I remember a cartoon depicting a chimney sweep falling from the roof of a tall building and noticing on the way that a signboard had one word spelled wrong, and wondering in his headlong flight why nobody had thought of correcting it. In a sense, we all are crashing to our death from the top story of our birth to the flat stones of the churchyard and wondering with an immortal Alice in Wonderland at the patterns of the passing wall. This capacity to wonder at trifles-no matter the imminent peril-these asides of the spirit, these footnotes in the volume of life are the highest forms of consciousness, and it is in this childishly speculative state of mind, so different from common sense and its logic, that we know the world to be good."
"When a beautiful reality looks unreal, you will realize that the beauty of reality is superior to any dream whatsoever!"
"What if stars were the glimmering tears of a giant, welling in his cheeks, waiting to fall at the first tender stroke of emotion? What if the moon were a wide-open eye gazing down on our tiny, little world and its tiny, little inhabitants as they rush to and fro in pursuit of tiny, little dreams? What if the sun were the glowing heart of a great beast, pumping hot blood to keep him alive while providing warmth for our pitiful world? Ahhh, imagination; it is a wondrous thing!"
"There is an anaesthetic of familiarity, a sedative of ordinariness which dulls the senses and hides the wonder of existence. For those of us not gifted in poetry, it is at least worth while from time to time making an effort to shake off the anaesthetic. What is the best way of countering the sluggish habitutation brought about by our gradual crawl from babyhood? We can't actually fly to another planet. But we can recapture that sense of having just tumbled out to life on a new world by looking at our own world in unfamiliar ways."
"Life is a bit like a sweet & toy & art & curiosity shop - all in one - only the best bits are free. If you look at all the things you can cherish it helps to balance everything else. Cherish the fabulous, the fantastic, the beautiful, the graceful, the moments of abandon, laughter, quirkiness. Cherish the tiny incredible details, the gigantic & varied display, and the infinite depths - of life."
Explore more quotes by Mary Oliver
"Language is rich, and malleable. It is a living, vibrant material, and every part of a poem works in conjunction with every other part - the content, the place, the diction, the rhythm, the tone-as well as the very sliding, floating, thumping, rapping sounds of it."
"I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple - or a green field - a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing - an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness -wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak -to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed."
"Love, love, love, says Percy.And hurry as fast as you canalong the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.Then, go to sleep.Give up your body heat, your beating heart.Then, trust."
"You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without doubt,I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me."
"Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth."
"A carpenter is hired- a roof repaired, a porch built. Everything that can be fixed. June, July, August. Everyday we hear their laughter. I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes."
"I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.He is sweeter than soap.He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace,which can't even bark..."
"I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple."
"But very little of it can do morethan start you on your way to the real, unimaginablydifficult goal of writing memorably. That work is doneslowly and in solitude, and it is as improbable as carryingwater in a sieve."
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