I mean, by such flightiness, something that feels unsatisfied at the center of my life – that makes me shaky, fickle, inquisitive, and hungry. I could call it a longing for home and not be far wrong. Or I could call it a longing for whatever supersedes, if it cannot pass through, understanding. Other words that come to mind: faith, grace, rest. In my outward appearance and life habits I hardly change – there’s never been a day that my friends haven’t been able to say, and at a distance, “There’s Oliver, still standing around in the weeds. There she is, still scribbling in her notebook.” But, at the center: I am shaking; I am flashing like tinsel. Restless. I read about ideas. Yet I let them remain ideas. I read about the poet who threw his books away, the better to come to a spiritual completion. Yet I keep my books. I flutter; I am attentive, maybe I even rise a little, balancing; then I fall back. Mary Oliver
My heart only ever had one thought, one want. One need. Despite all, in spite of all... All my heart has ever wanted is you.
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Stephanie Laurens
Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want.
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Louisa May Alcott
Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody–really want him–it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause...
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Elizabeth Gilbert
Just because I'm not forever by your side doesn't mean that's not precisely where I want to be.
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Stephanie Laurens
…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible–magic to make the sanest man go mad.
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Homer
More Quotes By Mary Oliver
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.
Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morningand spread it over the fieldsand into the faces of the tulipsand the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, themiserable and the crotchety — best preacher that ever...
You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and...
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
