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Everyone is born a poet - a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?
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
People
Words
Discovering
Everyone
Starts
Born
Caring
Persons
Kept
Person
Poet
Real
Question
Work
Stop
Way
Sound
Delighting
More quotes by William Stafford
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
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'Be alive,' the land says, 'listen - this is your time, your world, your pleasure.'
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A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
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Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.
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You shouldn't have standards that inhibit you from writing It really doesn't make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you've done it.
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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
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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.
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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
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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.
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...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.
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
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I heard a bird congratulating itself all day for being a jay. Nobody cared. But it was glad all over again, and said so, again.
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Please think about this as you go on. Breathe on the world. Hold out your hands to it. When morning and evenings roll along, watch how they open and close, how they invite you to the long party that your life is.
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I don't see writing as a communication of something already discovered, as truths already known. Rather, I see writing as a job of experiment. It's like any discovery job you don't know what's going to happen until you try it.
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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.
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One way to find your place is like the rain, a million requests for lodging, one that wins, finds your cheek: you find your home.
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