Quote

Let the bucket of memory down into the well, bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one stirring, no plans. Just being there.

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
Bring
Bucket
Wells
Buckets
Well
Stirring
Cool
Memory
Plans
Minutes
Memories

More quotes by William Stafford

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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
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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.
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'Be alive,' the land says, 'listen - this is your time, your world, your pleasure.'
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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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People wander about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread.
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And the things you know before you hear them these are you and the reason you are in the world.
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You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
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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 ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
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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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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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It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code.
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Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
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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 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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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