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Red Bird Quotes
Red Bird
by
Mary Oliver4,223 ratings, 4.37 average rating, 562 reviews
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Red Bird Quotes
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“Love Sorrow
Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing a street. For, think,
what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so
utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment
by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,
as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
she begins to grow.”
― Red Bird
Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing a street. For, think,
what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so
utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment
by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,
as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
she begins to grow.”
― Red Bird
“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.”
― Red Bird
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.”
― Red Bird
“Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.”
― Red Bird
― Red Bird
“Mornings at Blackwater
For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.
And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.
What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
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.”
― Red Bird
For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.
And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.
What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
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.”
― Red Bird
“Percy and Books
Percy does not like it when I read a book.
He puts his face over the top of it, and moans.
He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes.
The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.
The tide is out, and the neighbor's dogs are playing.
But Percy, I say, Ideas! The elegance of language!
The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories
that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage.
Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough. Let's go.”
― Red Bird
Percy does not like it when I read a book.
He puts his face over the top of it, and moans.
He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes.
The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.
The tide is out, and the neighbor's dogs are playing.
But Percy, I say, Ideas! The elegance of language!
The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories
that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage.
Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough. Let's go.”
― Red Bird
“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.”
― Red Bird
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.”
― Red Bird
“What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
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.”
― Red Bird
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
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.”
― Red Bird
“Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.”
― Red Bird
― Red Bird
“I don't want to live a small life. Open your eyes ... open your life, open your hands.”
― Red Bird
― Red Bird
“I am sorry for every mistake I have made in my
life.
I’m sorry I wasn’t wiser sooner.
I’m sorry I ever spoke of myself as lonely.”
― Red Bird
life.
I’m sorry I wasn’t wiser sooner.
I’m sorry I ever spoke of myself as lonely.”
― Red Bird
“I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I came, like red bird, to sing.
But I’m not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished,
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.”
― Red Bird
to be comforted.
I came, like red bird, to sing.
But I’m not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished,
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.”
― Red Bird
“Sometimes
1.
Something came up
out of the dark.
It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before.
It wasn’t an animal
or a flower,
unless it was both.
Something came up out of the water,
a head the size of a cat
but muddy and without ears.
I don’t know what God is.
I don’t know what death is.
But I believe they have between them
some fervent and necessary arrangement.
2.
Sometime
melancholy leaves me breathless…
3.
Water from the heavens! Electricity from the source!
Both of them mad to create something!
The lighting brighter than any flower.
The thunder without a drowsy bone in its body.
4.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
5.
Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything.
6.
God, rest in my heart
and fortify me,
take away my hunger for answers,
let the hours play upon my body
like the hands of my beloved.
Let the cathead appear again-
the smallest of your mysteries,
some wild cousin of my own blood probably-
some cousin of my own wild blood probably,
in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.
7.
Death waits for me, I know it, around
one corner or another.
This doesn’t amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.
After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
I walked slowly, and listened
to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.
Mary Oliver, Red Bird (Beacon Press, 2008)”
― Red Bird
1.
Something came up
out of the dark.
It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before.
It wasn’t an animal
or a flower,
unless it was both.
Something came up out of the water,
a head the size of a cat
but muddy and without ears.
I don’t know what God is.
I don’t know what death is.
But I believe they have between them
some fervent and necessary arrangement.
2.
Sometime
melancholy leaves me breathless…
3.
Water from the heavens! Electricity from the source!
Both of them mad to create something!
The lighting brighter than any flower.
The thunder without a drowsy bone in its body.
4.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
5.
Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything.
6.
God, rest in my heart
and fortify me,
take away my hunger for answers,
let the hours play upon my body
like the hands of my beloved.
Let the cathead appear again-
the smallest of your mysteries,
some wild cousin of my own blood probably-
some cousin of my own wild blood probably,
in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.
7.
Death waits for me, I know it, around
one corner or another.
This doesn’t amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.
After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
I walked slowly, and listened
to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.
Mary Oliver, Red Bird (Beacon Press, 2008)”
― Red Bird
“Let the world
have its way with you,
luminous as it is with mystery
and pain—
graced as it is
with the ordinary.”
― Red Bird
have its way with you,
luminous as it is with mystery
and pain—
graced as it is
with the ordinary.”
― Red Bird
“Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.”
― Red Bird
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.”
― Red Bird
“Lo, and I have discovered
how soft bloom
turns to green fruit,
which turns to sweet fruit.
Lo, and I have discovered
all winds blow cold
at last,
and the leaves,
so pretty, so many,
vanish
in the great, black
packet of time”
― Red Bird
how soft bloom
turns to green fruit,
which turns to sweet fruit.
Lo, and I have discovered
all winds blow cold
at last,
and the leaves,
so pretty, so many,
vanish
in the great, black
packet of time”
― Red Bird
“and also I am the leaves and the blossoms, and, like them, I am full of delight, and shaking.”
― Red Bird
― Red Bird
“Maker of All Things,
including appetite,
including stealth,
including the fear that makes
all of us, sometime or other,
flee for the sake
of our small and precious lives,
let me abide in your shadow—
let me hold on
to the edge of your robe
as you determine
what you must let be lost
and what will be saved.”
― Red Bird
including appetite,
including stealth,
including the fear that makes
all of us, sometime or other,
flee for the sake
of our small and precious lives,
let me abide in your shadow—
let me hold on
to the edge of your robe
as you determine
what you must let be lost
and what will be saved.”
― Red Bird
“What, precisely, will you grieve for?
”For the river. For myself, my lost
joyfulness. For the children who will not
know what a river can be—a friend, acompanion, a hint of heaven.”
― Red Bird
”For the river. For myself, my lost
joyfulness. For the children who will not
know what a river can be—a friend, acompanion, a hint of heaven.”
― Red Bird
“and easily
she adored
every blossom,
not in the serious,
careful way
that we choose
this blossom or that blossom—
the way we praise or don’t praise—
the way we love
or don’t love—
but the way
we long to be—
that happy
in the heaven of earth—
that wild, that loving.”
― Red Bird
she adored
every blossom,
not in the serious,
careful way
that we choose
this blossom or that blossom—
the way we praise or don’t praise—
the way we love
or don’t love—
but the way
we long to be—
that happy
in the heaven of earth—
that wild, that loving.”
― Red Bird
“I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I came, like a red bird, to sing.
But I'm not a red bird, with his head mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished,
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.”
― Red Bird
to be comforted.
I came, like a red bird, to sing.
But I'm not a red bird, with his head mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished,
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.”
― Red Bird
“Someday Even the oldest of the trees continues its wonderful labor. Hummingbird lives in one of them. He’s there for the white blossoms, and the secrecy. The blossoms could be snow, with a dash of pink. At first the fruit is small and green and hard. Everything has dreams, hope, ambition. If I could I would always live in such shining obedience where nothing but the wind trims the boughs. I am sorry for every mistake I have made in my life. I’m sorry I wasn’t wiser sooner. I’m sorry I ever spoke of myself as lonely. Oh, love, lay your hands upon me again. Some of the fruit ripens and is picked and is delicious. Some of it falls and the ants are delighted. Some of it hides under the snow and the famished deer are saved.”
― Red Bird
― Red Bird
“I am scorched
to realize once again
how many small, available things
are in this world that aren’t
pieces of gold
or power—
that nobody owns or could buy even
for a hillside of money—
that just
float about the world,”
― Red Bird
to realize once again
how many small, available things
are in this world that aren’t
pieces of gold
or power—
that nobody owns or could buy even
for a hillside of money—
that just
float about the world,”
― Red Bird
“see you in all your seasons
making love, arguing, talking about God
as if he were an idea instead of the grass,
instead of the stars,”
― Red Bird
making love, arguing, talking about God
as if he were an idea instead of the grass,
instead of the stars,”
― Red Bird
“But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. —Vincent van Gogh”
― Red Bird
― Red Bird
