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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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I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
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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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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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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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Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
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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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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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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
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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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The earth says have a place, be what that place requires hear the sound the birds imply and see as deep as ridges go behind each other.
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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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So, the world happens twice-- once what we see it as second it legends itself deep, the way it is.
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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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A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
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Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
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The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them — those are you, those are why you are in the world.
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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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Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?
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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
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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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