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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
William Stafford
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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
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Hutchinson
Kansas
Poem
Joke
Jokes
Serious
Learned
Truth
Jujitsu
Crafts
More quotes by William Stafford
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.
William Stafford
Security of character would be like a compass, you know? Other people may say that this way is north, or this way might be north. But the compass just says -- north. That's what we count on.
William Stafford
It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.
William Stafford
Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
William Stafford
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
When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation.
William Stafford
It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code.
William Stafford
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
Others may be able to accept standards from another, but an artist is a person who decides.
William Stafford
The more you let yourself be distracted from where you are going, the more you are the person that you are. It's not so much like getting lost as it is like getting found.
William Stafford
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
If you can say it, it begins to exist.
William Stafford
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.
William Stafford
A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
William Stafford
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
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.
William Stafford
Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
William Stafford
The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.
William Stafford
When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
William Stafford
You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
William Stafford