Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took... - Mary Oliver

"To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work."

"Still, what I want in my lifeis to be willingto be dazzled—to cast aside the weight of factsand maybe evento float a littleabove this difficult world."

"To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."

"Sometimes I dreamthat everything in the world is here, in my room, in a great closet, named and orderly,and I am here too, in front of it, hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness—and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing; and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees."

"I know many lives worth living."