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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.

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
Many
Things
People
Admirable
Understand

More quotes by 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.
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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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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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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
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The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.
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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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All still when summer is over stand shocks in the field, nothing left to whisper, not even good-bye, to the wind. After summer was over we knew winter would come: we knew silence would wait, tall, patient calm.
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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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You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
William Stafford
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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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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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
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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.
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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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And the things you know before you hear them these are you and the reason you are in the world.
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An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.
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You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
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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.
William Stafford
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You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about
William Stafford
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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.
William Stafford