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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

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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
World
Hear
Reason
Things

More quotes by William Stafford

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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.
William Stafford
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Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
William Stafford
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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.
William Stafford
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...What you fear will not go away it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there.
William Stafford
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Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.
William Stafford
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I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
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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.
William Stafford
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People wander about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread.
William Stafford
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What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.
William Stafford
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Please think about this as you go on. Breathe on the world. Hold out your hands to it. When morning and evenings roll along, watch how they open and close, how they invite you to the long party that your life is.
William Stafford
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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.
William Stafford
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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?
William Stafford
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You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
William Stafford
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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
William Stafford
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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
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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.
William Stafford
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When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
William Stafford
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I don't see writing as a communication of something already discovered, as truths already known. Rather, I see writing as a job of experiment. It's like any discovery job you don't know what's going to happen until you try it.
William Stafford
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Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
William Stafford
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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
William Stafford