The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver
Related One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept s... MARY OLIVER the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which... MARY OLIVER I Like For You To Be Still I like for you to be still It is as though you are... PABLO NERUDA I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even ... MARY OLIVER Like a pair of old slippers, I feel comfort and warmth as I slip into you. No, that i... KAMAND KOJOURI If You Forget Me I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: PABLO NERUDA APPLY WITHIN You once told me You wanted to find Yourself in the world - A... SUZY KASSEM Kindness Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, f... NAOMI SHIHAB NYE You start dying slowly if you do not travel, if you do not read, If you do not lis... MARTHA MEDEIROS Giving Birth by Marcus Amaker do you remember when the earth was just a bab... MARCUS AMAKER To A Squirrel At Kyle-Na-No Come play with me; Why should you run Through the s... W.B. YEATS Though it's fearful, Though it's deep, though it's dark And though you may lose the path... STEPHEN SONDHEIM If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed and leave the yellow bark dust on y... MICHAEL ONDAATJE I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer... PABLO NERUDA Note and Quote to Self – What you think, say and do! Your life mainly consists of 3 thi... ALLAN RUFUS Where are You Now? I was there whilst you cried, I was there to comfort you with smile, LUISA NATASHA PARKER Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green ... MARY OLIVER Ithaka As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of ... CONSTANTINOS P. CAVAFIS DADDY You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived l... SYLVIA PLATH Remember The Dream You have a choice Your heart will know You gotta look back s... JAMES INGRAM I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved... ANDREA GIBSON REMEMBER YOUR GREATNESS Before you were born, And were still too tiny for The h... SUZY KASSEM Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS BLUE SWEATER Bom Bom... Bom Bom... Bom Bom... Do you hear tha... COLLEEN HOOVER May you find serenity and tranquility in a worl... SANDRA STURTZ HAUSS Child, child, love while you can The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man; Never fea... SARA TEASDALE REMEMBER YOUR GREATNESS Before you were born, And were still too tiny for The h... SUZY KASSEM DON'T SAY, DO Do not say things You think I want to hear. Instead, S... SUZY KASSEM And when you're alone, there's a very good chance you'll meet things that scare you right out o... DR. SEUSS While I slept you stood in the colorful night market with pyramids of bright fruit pi... BRENDA HILLMAN My child, I know you're not a child But I still see you running wild Between those floweri... ANTONIA MICHAELIS And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them ... MARY OLIVER and you invented me and I invented you and that's why we don't get along on this... CHARLES BUKOWSKI You just stood there screaming Fearing no one was listening to you They say the empty can ratt... JAMES HETFIELD That thing you thought you'd do You start to think you can't; You always say tomorrow, MARGO T. ROSE
You Chose
You chose. You chose. You chose. You cho... SHANNON L. ALDER I want to see you. Know your voice. Recognize you when you first come 'ro... JALALUDDIN MEVLANA RUMI Dear Human: You've got it all wrong. You didn't come here to master unconditional lo... COURTNEY A. WALSH "The Lesson": Yes, my fretting, Frowning child, I could cross The room to y... CAROL LYNN PEARSON There are things you can’t reach. But You can reach out to them, and all day long. MARY OLIVER Late Fragment And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I... RAYMOND CARVER And brilliant days come alive, with you, around but the things we d... ANDREA KOEHLE JONES FORKED BRANCHES We grew up on the same street, You and me. We went to the... SUZY KASSEM All day long you sit and sew, Stitch life down for fear it grow, Stitch life down fo... EDITH SITWELL The Fever Bird The fever bird sand out last night. I could not sleep, try as I might... VIKRAM SETH That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I wen... MARY OLIVER You shall be my roots and I will be your shade, though the sun burns my leaves. MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI Love After Love The time will come when, with elation you will greet y... DEREK WALCOTT Well, now If little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you Little by li... PABLO NERUDA LET’S GO BACK HOME I can't think about you, Without smiling. What I wouldn’... GIORGE LEEDY I loved you, so I drew these tides of Men into my hands And wrote my will across the ... T.E. LAWRENCE MOTHER IS WATER I wish I could Shower your head with flowers And anoint your fe... SUZY KASSEM To know the way, we go the way, we do the way. The way we do, the things we do... BENJAMIN HOFF I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you use... DAPHNE GOTTLIEB I tried to warn you, But girls never listen. Got your innocence insured? ... WENDY HIGGINS As you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that your journey be a long one, filled wit... BARRY B. POWELL No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you kno... CHARLOTTE BRONTë People love to be scared because it's a cathartic experience, because you get to experience all thos... FRANK SPOTNITZ Missing you, I missed a part of me I shared with you that’s now gone. M... KAMAND KOJOURI I’m passing the bar Where you first got in my car I’m not ashamed to admit Tha... CRYSTAL WOODS I will remember the kisses our lips raw with love and how you gave me everything y... CHARLES BUKOWSKI O woman, father says natural is beautiful so why do you redden your cheeks and blac... KAMAND KOJOURI The Awakening I dreamed that I was a rose That grew beside a lonely way, JAMES WELDON JOHNSON when you are broken and he has left you do not question whether you were enough<... RUPI KAUR who are you really? you are not a name or a height, or a weight or a gende... M.K 7am They said that I’d forget you, and I knew it wasn’t true. But sometimes... COCO J. GINGER Something about you caught me by surprise Though I always knew you’d be my demise. R.S. GREY And I loved you I loved you so There were times I forgot to breathe Waiting ... VERONIKA JENSEN When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And When his win... KAHLIL GIBRAN Spring and Fall: To a Young Child Márgarét, are you gríeving Over Goldengr... GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS People always ask me "Son what does it take To reach out and touch your dreams?" To t... TIM MCGRAW My friend once told me she liked this guy because of his hands And I found it absurd that ... CAROL SHLYAKHOVA Hardly had the light been extinguished, when a peculiar trembling began to affect the netting u... VICTOR HUGO
The Paradoxical Commandments
People are illogical, unreasonable, and se... KENT M. KEITH Nachkland - Roland Leighton Down the long white road we walked together Down between... ROLAND LEIGHTON In Blackwater Woods Look, the trees are turning their own bodies in... MARY OLIVER girls please give your bodies and your lives to the young men who CHARLES BUKOWSKI I hope one day somebody loves you so much that they see violets in the bags unde... TRISTA MATEER The Poet With His Face In His Hands You want to cry aloud for your mistakes.... MARY OLIVER It's not easy, but do it anyway It's not easy to love, when you get resentment in re... HENNA SOHAIL It's not easy, but do it anyway It's not easy to love, when you get resentment in re... HENNA SOHAIL Better associations __________________ If you associate yourself with a change maker... ISRAELMORE AYIVOR If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe. Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that NEIL GAIMAN THE NAKED HEART From womb to tomb, There came and went - Only you. Poor or... SUZY KASSEM In your hands The dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive. Who would ... MARY OLIVER Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, saying, what joy to come falling MARY OLIVER Spilling a Secret What its size, will have varying consequences. It’s not ... ELLEN HOPKINS Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings but contemplate their return. ZHUANGZI Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell leaving is not enough; you must stay gone. tra... MARTY MCCONNELL Scared, Cold, in pain, the dust hasn't settled yet. Pinned in, crying, my clothes are ripp... RALPH ALLEN Language Crickets chirp, Birds sing, Dogs howl, It's their own thing. ANTHONY T. HINCKS A Woman's Question Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing Ever made by t... JOSHUA HARRIS They tell us the only way to move on is to forget. “Forgive,” they say. Realise ... KAMAND KOJOURI THE NAKED HEART From womb to tomb, There came and went - Only you. P... SUZY KASSEM There will always be those who say you are too young and delicate to make anything happen ... CLEMENTINE VON RADICS I drove by all the places we used to hang out getting wasted I thought about our last kiss, how... 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER When you are doing all that you know to do yet all hell is breaking out around you, SANJO JENDAYI ON THE DAY I DIE On the day I die, when I'm being carried toward the grave, don't we... RUMI If you're anything like me, You bite your nails, And laugh when you're nervous. You p... TAYLOR SWIFT Dear Fellow Human Being, You are born wild, You do not deserve to be tamed! Te... JASZ GILL
More Mary Oliver
To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it again... MARY OLIVER to live in this world you must be able to do three things to love what is morta... MARY OLIVER You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles thro... MARY OLIVER The Uses Of Sorrow (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved on... MARY OLIVER Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, w... MARY OLIVER Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. MARY OLIVER Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? MARY OLIVER Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing throug... MARY OLIVER All night my heart makes its way however it can over the rough ground of uncertainties, bu... MARY OLIVER To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. MARY OLIVER One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept s... MARY OLIVER To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it again... MARY OLIVER When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegr... MARY OLIVER Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roug... MARY OLIVER Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began as did all the fine arts, within the original wilder... MARY OLIVER Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least ... MARY OLIVER Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they're thirsty. That's prayer. ... MARY OLIVER So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray. MARY OLIVER The woods that I loved as a child are entirely gone. The woods that I loved as a young adult are gon... MARY OLIVER Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? MARY OLIVER I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a c... MARY OLIVER I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up wit... MARY OLIVER As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world wit... MARY OLIVER You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility ... MARY OLIVER Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious. MARY OLIVER Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life i... MARY OLIVER Love Sorrow Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must take care of what has... MARY OLIVER There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier? MARY OLIVER Always there is something worth saying about glory, about gratitude. MARY OLIVER Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, ... MARY OLIVER If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. MARY OLIVER My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here ... MARY OLIVER So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, MARY OLIVER the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which... MARY OLIVER When When it’s over, it’s over, and we don’t know any of us, what happens th... MARY OLIVER MARY OLIVER I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. MARY OLIVER I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. ... MARY OLIVER Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable. MARY OLIVER Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? MARY OLIVER I simply do not distinguish between work and play. MARY OLIVER There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day ... MARY OLIVER My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work... MARY OLIVER There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as... MARY OLIVER Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules. MARY OLIVER I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involu... MARY OLIVER To tell you the truth, I believe everything - tigers, trees, stones - are sentient in one way or ano... MARY OLIVER I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and neve... MARY OLIVER I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily... MARY OLIVER Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, saying, what joy to come falling MARY OLIVER from the complications of loving you i think there is no end or return. no answer, no coming out of ... MARY OLIVER So every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God, one... MARY OLIVER Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some goo... MARY OLIVER There are things you can’t reach. But You can reach out to them, and all day long. MARY OLIVER We meet wonderful people, but lose them in our busyness. We’re, as the saying goes, al... MARY OLIVER The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing or toss havoc shorew... MARY OLIVER When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself include... MARY OLIVER The poet dreams of the classroom I dreamed I stood up in class And I said aloud... MARY OLIVER You may not agree, you may not care, but if you are holding this book you should know that of a... MARY OLIVER I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all abo... MARY OLIVER I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even ... MARY OLIVER What misery to be afraid of death. What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven. MARY OLIVER But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done ri... MARY OLIVER Praying It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lo... MARY OLIVER I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too. MARY OLIVER Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world. MARY OLIVER You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know w... MARY OLIVER Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed. MARY OLIVER Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields...Watch, now, ho... MARY OLIVER Wasn't it Emerson who said, 'My life is for itself and not for a spectacle'? I have a ha... MARY OLIVER To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it. MARY OLIVER Percy wakes me (fourteen) Percy wakes me and I am not ready. He has slept all night ... MARY OLIVER The sweetness of dogs (fifteen) What do you say, Percy? I am thinking of sitting ou... MARY OLIVER I have a little dog who likes to nap with me. He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck... MARY OLIVER LITTLE DOGS RHAPSODY IN THE NIGHT (PERCY THREE) He puts his cheek against mine ... MARY OLIVER Love, love, love, says Percy. And hurry as fast as you can along the shining beach, or the... MARY OLIVER Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes... MARY OLIVER It is better for the heart to break, than not to break. MARY OLIVER I Go Down To The Shore I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on... MARY OLIVER If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of live... MARY OLIVER And now you'll be telling stories of my coming back and they won't be false, and they won'... MARY OLIVER New and Selected Poems: Volume Two MARY OLIVER To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work MARY OLIVER When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom,... MARY OLIVER Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? MARY OLIVER What can we dobut keep on breathing in and out,modest and willing, and in our places? MARY OLIVER That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I wen... MARY OLIVER I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social work... MARY OLIVER But I want to extol not the sweetness nor the placidity of the dog, but the wilderness out of which ... MARY OLIVER I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not givi... MARY OLIVER West Wind #2 You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begi... MARY OLIVER The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones. MARY OLIVER We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possib... MARY OLIVER I read Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, every day. MARY OLIVER Come with me into the woods where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not bei... MARY OLIVER If I've done my work well, I vanish completely from the scene. I believe it is invasive of the w... MARY OLIVER Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning ... MARY OLIVER After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world. MARY OLIVER You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me. W... MARY OLIVER Pretty Song" From the complications of loving you I think there is no end or return.... MARY OLIVER The Uses of Sorrow (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved once gave me a box fu... MARY OLIVER And who do you think you are sauntering along five feet up in the air, the ocean a blue f... MARY OLIVER As for life, I'm humbled, I'm without words sufficient to say how it has b... MARY OLIVER Oh Lord of melons, of mercy, though I am not ready, nor worthy, I am climbing towards you. MARY OLIVER oxygen Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its ... MARY OLIVER Apparently, I've been considered a recluse. MARY OLIVER I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going we... MARY OLIVER The Poet With His Face In His Hands You want to cry aloud for your mistakes.... MARY OLIVER Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled— to cast aside the wei... MARY OLIVER How I go to the woods Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single ... MARY OLIVER I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this... MARY OLIVER When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the b... MARY OLIVER The world has need of dreamers as well as shoemakers. MARY OLIVER You must never stop being whimsical. MARY OLIVER I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life... MARY OLIVER I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my li... MARY OLIVER It learns quickly what sort of courtship it is going to be. Say you promise to be at your ... MARY OLIVER And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead / children out of the fields into the ... MARY OLIVER In your hands The dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive. Who would ... MARY OLIVER You’re like a little wild thing that was never sent to school. MARY OLIVER and anyway it’s just the same old story -- a few people just trying, one way or another,... MARY OLIVER It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or che... MARY OLIVER DAISIES It is possible, I suppose that sometime we will learn everything there ... MARY OLIVER Now and again there's a moment, when the heart cries aloud: yes, I am willing to be t... MARY OLIVER Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat? He is wiser than that, I thi... MARY OLIVER ...to be absent from the world and alive, again, in another... MARY OLIVER I believe you did not have a happy life. I believe you were cheated. I believe your best f... MARY OLIVER And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far, that is better than these light-filled bodies? MARY OLIVER The water, that circle of shattered glass, healed itself with a slow whisper and lay back MARY OLIVER All my life I have been restless- I have felt there is something more wonderful than ... MARY OLIVER Of course! the path to heaven doesn't lie down in flat miles. It's in the imagination MARY OLIVER When I have to die, I would like to die on a day of rain - long rain, slow rain, the kind ... MARY OLIVER Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green ... MARY OLIVER They stay in my mind, these beautiful people, or anyway beautiful people to me, of which t... MARY OLIVER And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills, like a million flowers on fire... MARY OLIVER When it over, I want to say:all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was a brideg... MARY OLIVER When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was a b... MARY OLIVER At Blackwater Pond At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a... MARY OLIVER Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? MARY OLIVER And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them ... MARY OLIVER Drive down any road, take a train or an airplane across the world, leave your o... MARY OLIVER Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, a... MARY OLIVER When Death Comes When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when... MARY OLIVER Also I wanted to be able to love And we all know how that one goes, don't we? Slowly MARY OLIVER In Blackwater Woods Look, the trees are turning their own bodies in... MARY OLIVER Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell ... MARY OLIVER The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own ... MARY OLIVER You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles thro... MARY OLIVER TIDES Every day the sea blue gray green lavender pulls away leaving the harbor’s dark-cobbled unde... MARY OLIVER Percy and Books Percy does not like it when I read a book. He puts his face over th... MARY OLIVER I don't think any responsible performer would go on stage high. If he convinced himself he is better... OLIVER I don't try to analyze my style now or I might lose it. Right now it's automatic and I don't want to... OLIVER I think some entertainers have been very irresponsible in their part in making drug use a fad among ... OLIVER I wouldn't say I'm happy, but I look at things in a soft way. I try to convey more personal interact... OLIVER My job is to entertain people by playing my music well. You shouldn't really be upset because people... OLIVER I like working alone. I feel freer, less constrained. I know what I have to do and I try to do it. T... OLIVER My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of so... JOHN OLIVER I challenge you, to go to any school and open 50 lunchboxes, and I guarantee you there will be one o... JAMIE OLIVER If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self -... OLIVER SACKS The moment I accept that there's an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeli... JOHN OLIVER I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior. JOHN OLIVER I've met people who will go to a movie that I can't stand and they say that they saw that mo... OLIVER STONE I think that many people in history who had power were bumped off because they had power. OLIVER STONE You do the best job you can. You take it step by step. It's hard enough to make a movie. If it w... OLIVER STONE In any film there's always a historical implication. OLIVER STONE I do believe that movies are subject to a million interpretations. OLIVER STONE But in answer to your question about the conspiracy angle, I think that any historian worth his salt... OLIVER STONE You're not a historian, but most historians will tell you that they make very discrete judgment ... OLIVER STONE It's interesting that when economic times were the hardest, that's when many people embraced... OLIVER STONE I never put out a history, I put out a dramatic history. OLIVER STONE I am not trying to be a historian and a dramatist; I'm a dramatist, a dramatic historian, or one... OLIVER STONE But I suppose film is distinctive because of its nature, of its being able to cut through time with ... OLIVER STONE A woman can be very beautiful and an ideal model and she will photograph incredibly well, but she... OLIVER STONE Anybody who's been through a divorce will tell you that at one point. they've thought murder... OLIVER STONE I have the right to interpretation as a dramatist. I research. It's my responsibility to find th... OLIVER STONE I've been to war, and it's not easy to kill. It's bloody and messy and totally horrifyin... OLIVER STONE When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process. OLIVER STONE Fear may very well be a caveman fear of the predator, of the giant lizard chasing them - maybe that&... OLIVER STONE If anything, if you can get somebody interested in something and get them excited, that's great.... OLIVER STONE I'm terrible at horror movies, by the way. I get scared so easily. OLIVER STONE I will come out with my interpretation. If I'm wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of... OLIVER STONE There's an electrical thing about movies. OLIVER STONE I would vote for the man who's lived life, who's done different occupations, who's been ... OLIVER STONE I think experience will teach you a combination of liberalism and conservatism. We have to be progre... OLIVER STONE I study history in order to give an interpretation. OLIVER STONE In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a s... OLIVER SACKS I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever 'completing a life' means. OLIVER SACKS I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over. OLIVER SACKS Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbe... OLIVER SACKS I was always the youngest boy in my class at high school. I have retained this feeling of being the ... OLIVER SACKS I think hallucinations need to be discussed. There are all sorts of hallucinations, and then many so... OLIVER SACKS At the New York Athletic Club they serve amazing food. People go there, get healthy, and then eat th... OLIVER REED If the money's right, I'll do a film. OLIVER REED You get so weak from eating pears that you fall down, and then they come and take you away on a stre... OLIVER REED I don't like doing most things unless I can do them quite well. OLIVER REED I'm really a pacifist. OLIVER REED Awe and respect are two different things. OLIVER REED I'm not as thrilled with myself as I used to be. OLIVER REED What's the point of staying sober? OLIVER REED Raquel Welch is someone I can also live without. We've got some love scenes together and I am dr... OLIVER REED