“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.”

“Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight.”

— Mary Oliver, "Mindful" (2004)

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention.”

— Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day" (1990)

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

— Mary Oliver, "Sometimes" (2004)

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

— Mary Oliver, "Evidence" (2009)

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

— Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day" (1990)

“The world offers itself to your imagination.”

— Mary Oliver, "Spring Azures" (2005)