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

— Mary Oliver, Winter Hours, 1999

About Mary Oliver

1935 – 2019

American poet and Pulitzer Prize winner (1984), known for her nature poetry, including 'The Summer Day'.

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

“You do not have to be good.”

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

“Death, like generation, is a secret of Nature.”

“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”

“No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle.”

“A witticism is an epigram on the death of a feeling.”

“Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end.”

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!”