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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.

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
Ends
Even
Upper
Believe
Believes
River
Beach
Rivers
Sea
Ocean

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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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A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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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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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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I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
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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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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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The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.
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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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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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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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Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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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.
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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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I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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