We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading, walking around the woods in Ohio, where I grew up.

In this reflection, Oliver frames happiness not as a luxury but as a basic appetite—something the “hungry heart” naturally seeks. Her emphasis on “staying where I was happy” suggests an ethic of attention and self-preservation: choosing environments and practices that nourish the inner life rather than deplete it. The autobiographical details—reading, writing, and solitary walks in the Ohio woods—connect her idea of happiness to quiet, sustained communion with nature and language. The quote also hints at the origins of her poetic method: a life shaped by observation, wandering, and study, where joy is cultivated through simplicity, solitude, and fidelity to one’s deepest inclinations.