Mary Oliver Zitate

seite 3

„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.“

“For some things there are no wrong seasons. Which is what I dream of for me.”

“A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her,
that you know
almost nothing.”

“I feel the terror of idleness,
like a red thirst.
Death isn't just an idea.”

“Sunrise

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.”

“When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included.”

“Drive down any road,

take a train or an airplane
across the world, leave
your old life behind,

die and be born again~
wherever you arrive
they'll be there first,

glossy and rowdy
and indistinguishable.
The deep muscle of the world.”

“Poetry is a life-cherishing force.”

“Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.”

“We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it.”

“I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive.”

“THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER As long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules. Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules. Sometimes there are no rules.”

“We meet wonderful people, but lose them
in our busyness.
We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we love them so much.”

“Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems.”

“The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things,
I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever

from, One or Two Things”

“There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?”

“Things take the time they take.
Don't worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?”

“Always there is something worth saying
about glory, about gratitude.”

“Come with me into the woods where spring is
advancing, as it does, no matter what,
not being singular or particular, but one
of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.”

“It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least ten times a day.”

“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. Yes indeed.”

“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.”

“Be prepared. A dog is adorable and noble.
A dog is a true and loving friend. A dog
is also a hedonist.”

“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…”

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

“The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.”

“And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead / children out of the fields into the text / of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass.”

“Therefore, dark past,
I’m about to do it.
I’m about to forgive you

for everything.”

“Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving”

“Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.”