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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
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Crafts
Poem
Joke
Jokes
Serious
Learned
Truth
Jujitsu

More quotes by William Stafford

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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.
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
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You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about
William Stafford
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It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code.
William Stafford
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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.
William Stafford
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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.
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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Language can do what it can’t say.
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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When a goat likes a book, the whole book is gone, and the meaning has to go find an author again.
William Stafford
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Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
William Stafford
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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.
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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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
William Stafford
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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
William Stafford
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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.
William Stafford
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Some people are blinded by their experience. Soldiers know how important war is. Owners of slaves learn every day how inferior subject peoples are.
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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A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
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