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
You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Grace is preferred over chance and luck as a guiding force in life.
In this quote, Mary Oliver emphasizes the importance of grace as a fundamental aspect of existence, which she regards as more reliable and meaningful than the randomness of chance or luck. She acknowledges the mystery of grace, suggesting that it encompasses something profound and transformative that can positively shape our lives.
Themes
GraceLuckChanceMeaningPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about resilience, one might quote this to illustrate the importance of seeking grace rather than relying solely on luck.
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
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I came to realize clearly that the mind is no other than the Mountain and the Rivers and the great wide Earth, the Sun and the Moon and the Skyβ.
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I am absolutely against positive thinking. You will be surprised that if you don't choose, if you remain in a choiceless awareness, your life will start expressing something which is beyond both positive and negative, which is higher than both. So you are not going to be a loser. It is not going to be negative, it is not going to be positive, it is going to be existential.
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