Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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.
William Stafford
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Way
North
Would
Count
Like
Compassion
People
Says
Security
Character
May
Might
Compass
More quotes by William Stafford
I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
William Stafford
If you can say it, it begins to exist.
William Stafford
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
William Stafford
There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
William Stafford
The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.
William Stafford
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.
William Stafford
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
When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation.
William Stafford
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
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.
William Stafford
The ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
William Stafford
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.
William Stafford
You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
William Stafford
A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
William Stafford
You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
William Stafford
Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
William Stafford
You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
William Stafford
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
I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
William Stafford
Others may be able to accept standards from another, but an artist is a person who decides.
William Stafford