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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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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
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Hutchinson
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More quotes by William Stafford
Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.
William Stafford
Some people are blinded by their experience. Soldiers know how important war is. Owners of slaves learn every day how inferior subject peoples are.
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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?
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So, the world happens twice-- once what we see it as second it legends itself deep, the way it is.
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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
People wander about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread.
William Stafford
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
When a goat likes a book, the whole book is gone, and the meaning has to go find an author again.
William Stafford
Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.
William Stafford
Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?
William Stafford
It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.
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
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.
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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
And the things you know before you hear them these are you and the reason you are in the world.
William Stafford
A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
William Stafford
There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
William Stafford
I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
William Stafford
A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
William Stafford
