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.
Mary OliverRead
I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is a passionate pursuit rather than just a profession for the author.
In this quote, Mary Oliver expresses her deep love for writing as an art form rather than viewing it solely as a career or profession. She emphasizes the excitement and power that writing brings to her life, highlighting the joy and fulfillment that comes from engaging in a creative endeavor driven by passion.
Themes
WritingPassionCreativityArtLifeFulfillment
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about following your passions, you might say, 'As Mary Oliver once noted, writing is not just a profession; it's the most wonderful thing to do with your life.'
More from Mary Oliver
All quotes →At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.
Mary OliverRead
I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.
Mary OliverRead
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.
Mary OliverRead
If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.
Mary OliverRead
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.
Mary OliverRead
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Elliott ErwittRead
Certainly, I was typed. But what is typing? It is a trademark, a means by which the public recognizes you. Actors work all their lives to achieve that. I got mine with just one picture. It was a blessing.
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When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is.
Raymond CarverRead
This idea of imposing an order is very interesting to me. Photography is in essence an analytic medium. … In photography, you start with the whole world and every decision you make imposes an order on it. The question is to what extent it’s an idealized order I’m imposing or is it an order that grows out of what the world looks like.
Stephen ShoreRead
All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.
Vladimir NabokovRead