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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Place
Requires
Earth
Bird
Behinds
Deep
Behind
Says
Ridges
Hear
Imply
Sound
Birds

More quotes by William Stafford

Image
There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
William Stafford
Image
I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
William Stafford
Image
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
Image
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.
William Stafford
Image
You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
William Stafford
Image
It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.
William Stafford
Image
Everyone is born a poet - a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?
William Stafford
Image
A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
William Stafford
Image
My question is when did other people give up the idea of being a poet? You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?
William Stafford
Image
You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
William Stafford
Image
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
Image
I heard a bird congratulating itself all day for being a jay. Nobody cared. But it was glad all over again, and said so, again.
William Stafford
Image
A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
William Stafford
Image
Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?
William Stafford
Image
It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code.
William Stafford
Image
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.
William Stafford
Image
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
Image
A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
William Stafford
Image
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
William Stafford
Image
Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
William Stafford