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If you purify the pond, the lilies die

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
Pond
Ponds
Lilies
Dies
Purify

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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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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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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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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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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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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
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Language can do what it can’t say.
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It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.
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Keep a journal, and don't assume that your work has to accomplish anything worthy: artists and peace-workers are in it for the long haul, and not to be judged by immediate results.
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Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.
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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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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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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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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
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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.
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