“Write first with a pen. It’s too easy on the computer to change a word, then forget what it was. Also, don’t get too social. Write for whatever holy thing you believe in, not for your poetry workshop fellows. And dare once in a while to throw a poem away. The main thing is to know that your craving to write is the big thing and will continue, and is more valuable than the finished poem.”
More from Mary Oliver
“Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.”
“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of…”
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls…”
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles…”