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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
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Hutchinson
Kansas
Serious
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Jujitsu
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Jokes
More quotes by William Stafford
When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
William Stafford
The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.
William Stafford
Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.
William Stafford
Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
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
Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
William Stafford
The ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
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
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
If you purify the pond, the lilies die
William Stafford
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
There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
William Stafford
And the things you know before you hear them these are you and the reason you are in the world.
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
I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
William Stafford
A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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
'Be alive,' the land says, 'listen - this is your time, your world, your pleasure.'
William Stafford
Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.
William Stafford
Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
William Stafford