Quote

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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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Flower
Trust
Doe
Blossom
Root
Plant
Roots

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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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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.
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...What you fear will not go away it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there.
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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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What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.
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There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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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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You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about
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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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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.
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The ocean and I have many pebbles To find and wash off and roll into shape.
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Everyone is born a poet - a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?
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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.
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You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
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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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'Be alive,' the land says, 'listen - this is your time, your world, your pleasure.'
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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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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