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So, the world happens twice-- once what we see it as second it legends itself deep, the way it is.

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
Way
World
Legends
Twice
Deep
Second
Happens

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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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The ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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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.
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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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Language can do what it can’t say.
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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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Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?
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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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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.
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It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.
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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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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.
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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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The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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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.
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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.
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And the things you know before you hear them these are you and the reason you are in the world.
William Stafford