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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
Hear
Reason
Things
World

More quotes by William Stafford

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Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.
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.
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An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.
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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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I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
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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.
William Stafford
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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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The ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
William Stafford
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You shouldn't have standards that inhibit you from writing It really doesn't make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you've done it.
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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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
William Stafford
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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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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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The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.
William Stafford
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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.
William Stafford
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Language can do what it can’t say.
William Stafford
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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
William Stafford
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Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
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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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