Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
I don't want to end up simply having visited this 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
I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.
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 wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.