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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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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
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Hutchinson
Kansas
Look
Exactly
River
Looks
Hold
Hidden
Silence
Current
Says
Currents
Turn
Miles
Waiting
Rivers
Comings
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Wait
Goings
Away
Silent
Stillness
More quotes by William Stafford
My question is when did other people give up the idea of being a poet? You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.
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Let the bucket of memory down into the well, bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one stirring, no plans. Just being there.
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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
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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.
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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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.
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When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
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A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
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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.
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The ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
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Others may be able to accept standards from another, but an artist is a person who decides.
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I heard a bird congratulating itself all day for being a jay. Nobody cared. But it was glad all over again, and said so, again.
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Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
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I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
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Please think about this as you go on. Breathe on the world. Hold out your hands to it. When morning and evenings roll along, watch how they open and close, how they invite you to the long party that your life is.
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