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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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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Roll
Shape
Shapes
Sea
Ocean
Find
Many
Pebbles
Wash

More quotes by William Stafford

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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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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
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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?
William Stafford
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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
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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
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Others may be able to accept standards from another, but an artist is a person who decides.
William Stafford
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I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
William Stafford
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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
William Stafford
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When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
William Stafford
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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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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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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
William Stafford
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
William Stafford
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I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
William Stafford
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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
William Stafford
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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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When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation.
William Stafford
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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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You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
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