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"I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write."
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"If you want to know the value of a minute ask the person who came to the train station or airport a minute late."

"Don't equate effective living to being busy."

"When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?"
Explore more quotes by Mary Oliver


"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."


"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."


"I stood like Adam in his lonely gardenOn that first morning, shaken out of sleep,Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift."


"Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work."


"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."


"After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world."
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