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An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.
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
Along
Hear
Sound
Didn
Wandered
Owl
Breathed
Ears
Road
More quotes by William Stafford
If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.
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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.
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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.
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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And the things you know before you hear them these are you and the reason you are in the world.
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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.
William Stafford
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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When a goat likes a book, the whole book is gone, and the meaning has to go find an author again.
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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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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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.
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Others may be able to accept standards from another, but an artist is a person who decides.
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The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.
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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
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Once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold, found some limit beyond the waterfall, a season changes and we come back changed but safe, quiet, grateful.
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The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.
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Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?
William Stafford
Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.
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So, the world happens twice-- once what we see it as second it legends itself deep, the way it is.
William Stafford
