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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

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
Writer
Enough
Thing
Block
Lows
Standards
Writers
Whose

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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A student comes to me with a piece of writing, holds it out, says, 'Is this good?' A whole sequence of emergencies goes off in my mind. That's not a question to ask anyone but yourself.
William Stafford
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You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
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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I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
William Stafford
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Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
William Stafford
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
William Stafford
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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
William Stafford
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Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?
William Stafford
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Language can do what it can’t say.
William Stafford
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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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You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
William Stafford
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A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
William Stafford
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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
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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.
William Stafford
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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
William Stafford
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The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.
William Stafford
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All still when summer is over stand shocks in the field, nothing left to whisper, not even good-bye, to the wind. After summer was over we knew winter would come: we knew silence would wait, tall, patient calm.
William Stafford
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Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.
William Stafford
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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.
William Stafford