Quote

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.

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
Says
Ridges
Hear
Imply
Birds
Sound
Requires
Place
Bird
Earth
Behinds
Deep
Behind

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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.
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I am not learning definitions as established in even the latest dictionaries. I am not a dictionary-maker. I am a person a dictionary-maker has to contend with. I am a living evidence in the development of language.
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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.
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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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Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.
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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
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Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
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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.
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You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about
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I embrace emerging experience, I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly.
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Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now?
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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.
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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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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.
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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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Language can do what it can’t say.
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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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You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.
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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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You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
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