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
Love, love, love, says Percy. And hurry as fast as you can along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust. Then, go to sleep. Give up your body heat, your beating heart. Then, trust.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of love and trust in life, encouraging us to embrace life passionately and surrender ourselves to love.
Mary Oliver's quote reflects on the profound nature of love and the vulnerability it entails. By urging us to experience love fully, whether on a beautiful beach or amidst challenges, she points to the necessity of trusting in both the process of loving and the larger journey of life. The imagery of giving up one's body heat and trusting implies a deep personal sacrifice and the courage required to connect genuinely with others.
Themes
LoveTrustLifeVulnerabilitySurrender
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding ceremony, one might quote this to highlight the importance of love and trust in the couple's life together.
More from Mary Oliver
All quotes βAt 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
Similar quotes
All through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire- a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.
Charles DickensRead
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.
Elisabeth ElliotRead
This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
Nina SimoneRead
Loving God is like my being black. I just am. [No one says] 'You know what? I'm gonna be blacker today!' It's my culture. It's not something I put on or take off or show more. You just communicate that in the way you live your life.
Angela BassettRead
Mindful time spent with the person we love is the fullest expression of true love and real generosity.
Nhat HanhRead
Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high.
William GoldmanRead