Why I Wake Early Quotes

“The Old Poets Of China

Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“DAISIES

It is possible, I suppose that sometime
we will learn everything
there is to learn: what the world is, for example,
and what it means. I think this as I am crossing
from one field to another, in summer, and the
mockingbird is mocking me, as one who either
knows enough already or knows enough to be
perfectly content not knowing. Song being born
of quest he knows this: he must turn silent
were he suddenly assaulted with answers. Instead

oh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselessly
unanswered. At my feet the white-petalled daisies display
the small suns of their center piece, their -- if you don't
mind my saying so -- their hearts. Of course
I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and
narrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know?
But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,
to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;
for example -- I think this
as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch --
the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the
daisies for the field.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Impossible to believe we need so much
as the world wants us to buy.
I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips
than I could possibly use before I die. Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,
with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass.
No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass. And I suppose sometime I will.
Old and cold I will lie apart
from all this buying and selling, with only
the beautiful earth in my heart.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety— best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light— good morning, good morning, good morning. Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Oh, to love what is lovely and will not last!
What a task
to ask
of anything, or anyone,
yet it is ours,
and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!      What a task          to ask of anything, or anyone, yet it is ours,     and not by the century or the year, but by the hours. One”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,
how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,
even your eyes, even your imagination.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky, how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you, even your eyes, even your imagination. The Soul at Last The Lord’s terrifying kindness has come to me. It was only a small silvery thing—say a piece of silver cloth, or a thousand spider webs woven together, or a small handful of aspen leaves, with their silver backs shimmering. And”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Oh, I would like to live in an empty house, with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass. No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“I
held my breath
as we do
sometimes
to stop time
when something wonderful
has touched us...”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“But his big, round music, after all, is too breathy to last.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“All things are inventions of holiness. Some more rascally than others. I”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Our hands, or minds, our feet hold more intelligence. With this I have no quarrel.
But, what about virtue?”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Let the fire now
put on its red hat
and sing to us.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,
    to see what is plain; what the sun
lights up willingly; for example—I think this
    as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch—
the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the
    daisies for the field.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Impossible to believe we need so much
as the world wants us to buy.
I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips
than I could possibly use before I die.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“How everything shines in the morning light!”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“a momentous and
    beautiful silence as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
    hurried to hear it.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“It is what I was born for—
to look, to listen, to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab, the daily presentations.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Then I remember:
death comes before
the rolling away
of the stone.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“Fifteen minutes of music
with nothing playing.”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

“What you have never noticed about the toad, probably ... his front feet, which are sometimes padded, hold three nimble digits - had anyone a piano small enough I think the toad could learn to play something, a little Mozart maybe”
― Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early