Quote

...What you fear will not go away it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there.

William Stafford

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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Keep
Live
Take
World
Bless
Fear
Away

More quotes by William Stafford

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I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
William Stafford
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You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
William Stafford
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Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
William Stafford
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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
William Stafford
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
William Stafford
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Others may be able to accept standards from another, but an artist is a person who decides.
William Stafford
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The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.
William Stafford
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When a goat likes a book, the whole book is gone, and the meaning has to go find an author again.
William Stafford
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Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now?
William Stafford
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When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation.
William Stafford
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People wander about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread.
William Stafford
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Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
William Stafford
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Keep a journal, and don't assume that your work has to accomplish anything worthy: artists and peace-workers are in it for the long haul, and not to be judged by immediate results.
William Stafford
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Let the bucket of memory down into the well, bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one stirring, no plans. Just being there.
William Stafford
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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
William Stafford
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The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them — those are you, those are why you are in the world.
William Stafford
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It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code.
William Stafford
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They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, Who are you really, wanderer?-- and the answer you have to give no matter how dark and cold the world around you is: Maybe I'm a king.
William Stafford
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Security of character would be like a compass, you know? Other people may say that this way is north, or this way might be north. But the compass just says -- north. That's what we count on.
William Stafford
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
William Stafford