Mary Oliver Quotes

I will not surrender responsibility for my life and my actions.

Man must assume responsibility for the direction of his life and destiny.

The only person who is going to give you security and the life you want is you.

What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.

The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself, other people spend it for you.

You just have to do your own thing, no matter what anyone says. It's your life.

I can't always live my life for everybody else.

A person's life is of their own making, and I take full responsibility for mine.

I am responsible for me. I can kind of take care of what I need to do and should do what I like to do.

I'm just living my life, and I'm not gonna live my life for other people.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

I never accepted the idea that I had to be guided by some pattern or blueprint.

I don't care what anyone says. It's my life, and I can do what I like.

I have my life, my world. I do what I want, without annoying anyone.

The more control you have over your life, the more responsible you feel for your own success - or failure.

Ultimately the person, even the child, must choose for himself.

If I lead my life according to someone else, I've screwed my life up.

I feel you're in charge of your own situation.

No one controlled Frank Sinatra or told him how to sing. No secret group of managers has been telling someone like Jay-Z what to do or how to look. And no one tells me what to do except me and the people who believe in me.

I tell all kids and the girls growing up that you control your own life, you control your destiny - not where you're born, not who your parents are.

At the end of the day all I've ever asked for is to be allowed to succeed and fail on my own merits. Not based on what somebody else wants me to do or thinks I should do. Or, what they want me to say or what they think I should say.

But my whole career, I have done things my way and the way that I wanted.

I think it's important to be in control of my own destiny; to a lot of people I'm just a product, so I feel it's up to me to take a keen interest in what's going on around me. After all, it's my life.

I have lived life on my own terms.

Expectations are one thing, but you've got to do your own. Got to do your own.