Mary Oliver Zitate

„Die bedauerlichsten Menschen auf Erden sind diejenigen, die den Ruf zur kreativen Arbeit verspürten, die ihre eigene schöpferische Kraft als unruhig und erhebend empfanden und ihr weder Kraft noch Zeit gaben.“

„… Es gab eine neue Stimme,
die du langsam
als deine eigene erkanntest,
die dir Gesellschaft leistete,
als du tiefer und tiefer
in die Welt eindrangst,
entschlossen, das Einzige zu tun,
was du tun konnten -
entschlossen, das einzige Leben zu retten,
das du retten konnten.“

„Ich sage dir das
um dein Herz zu brechen,
womit ich nur meine,
dass es aufbricht und sich dem Rest der Welt
nie wieder verschließt.“

„So war ich jeden Tag von den schönen Ausrufen
der Ideen Gottes umgeben, von denen eine du warst.“

„Ich möchte nicht damit enden, diese Welt einfach nur besucht zu haben.“

„Liebe Dich selbst.
Dann vergiss es.
Dann liebe die Welt.“

„Wo immer ich bin, kommt die Welt mir nach.
Sie bietet mir ihre Geschäftigkeit. Sie glaubt nicht,
dass ich sie nicht will. Jetzt verstehe ich,
warum die alten Dichter Chinas so weit und
hoch in die Berge gingen und sich dann in den blassen Nebel schlichen.“

„Und das ist genau der Punkt… wie die Welt, feucht und schön, jeden von uns auffordert, eine neue und ernsthafte Antwort zu geben. Das ist die große Frage, die die Welt jeden Morgen auf dich wirft. "Hier bist du, lebendig. Möchtest du einen Kommentar abgeben?"“

„Ich gehe morgens zum Ufer hinunter
und je nach Stunde rollen die Wellen hinein oder heraus und ich sage: Oh, ich bin unglücklich,
was soll -
was sollte ich tun? Und das Meer sagt mit seiner schönen Stimme:
Entschuldigung, ich habe Arbeit zu erledigen.“

„Ich glaube an Freundlichkeit. Auch in Unfrieden.“

„Manchmal brauche ich
nur zu stehen
wo auch immer ich bin
um gesegnet zu sein.“

„Es fiel Schnee,
so sehr wie Sterne
die dunkle Bäume füllten,
dass man sich leicht vorstellen konnte,
dass der Grund ihres Daseins nichts anderes als Hübschheit war.“

„Wenn es vorbei ist, will ich sagen: Mein ganzes Leben lang war ich eine Braut, die dem Staunen angetraut war.“

“(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.”

“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”

“So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God, one of which was you.”

“I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.”

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

“The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.”

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

“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.”

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

“Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.”

“Death waits for me, I know it, around
one corner or another.
This doesn't amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.”

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

“Love yourself. Then forget it.
Then, love the world.”

“I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

“I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.”

“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.”

“When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.

--from WHEN DEATH COMES”

“maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us”

“He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.”

“Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.”

“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 try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be. It's impossible not
to remember wild an want it back.”

“Listen, whatever you see and love—
that’s where you are.”

“Listen. Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”

“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.”