Quote

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

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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Heard
Congratulating
Cared
Glad
Bird
Nobody

More quotes by William Stafford

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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
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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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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
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If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
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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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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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The earth says have a place, be what that place requires hear the sound the birds imply and see as deep as ridges go behind each other.
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'Be alive,' the land says, 'listen - this is your time, your world, your pleasure.'
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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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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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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
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An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.
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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.
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It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation. . . . Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you--you come at it over unmarked snow.
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Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
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You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
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The ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
William Stafford
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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.
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