Mary Oliver, the best selling American poet and Pulitzer Prize winner, penned these bold and profoundly inspirational life quotes.

Her work is a little light, it's a little dark, and it's a lot brilliant.

Get inspired. 

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

"If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it."

"Listen. Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?"

"It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world."

"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."

"I simply do not distinguish between work and play."

"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable."

"As long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules. Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules. Sometimes there are no rules."

"You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life."

"Listen, whatever you see and love - that’s where you are."

"Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled - to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world."

"How could there be a day in your whole life that doesn’t have a splash of happiness?"

"Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."

"I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."