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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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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Signals
Darkness
Deep
Maybe
Clear
Around
Give
Giving

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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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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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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?
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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
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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.
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When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
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The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.
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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.
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What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.
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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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You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
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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.
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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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