William Stafford Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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.

  William Stafford

  Talking, World, Hearing

  "Crossing unmarked snow: further views on the writer's vocation".

  38 Copy quote

• I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.

  William Stafford

  Kindness, Not Giving Up, Thoughtful

  38 Copy quote

• 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

  Morning, Party, Thinking

  43 Copy quote

• 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?

  William Stafford

  Real, Caring, People

  39 Copy quote

• You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about

  William Stafford

  Talking, Needs, Knows

  33 Copy quote

• Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.

  William Stafford

  Dance, Children, Kids

  William Stafford (1998). “The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems”, Graywolf Press

  58 Copy quote

• The Way It Is There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread. ~ William Stafford ~

  William Stafford

  Letting Go, Hurt, People

  37 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Stafford

  Butterfly, Discovery, Experience

  William Stafford, Paul Merchant, Vincent Wixon (1998). “Crossing unmarked snow: further views on the writer's vocation”, Univ of Michigan Pr

  56 Copy quote

• And the things you know before you hear them; these are you and the reason you are in the world.

  William Stafford

  World, Reason, Knows

  17 Copy quote

• If you purify the pond, the lilies die

  William Stafford

  Ponds, Lilies, Dies

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Rivers, Silence, Waiting

  William Stafford (1977). “Stories that could be true: new and collected poems”, HarperCollins Publishers

  25 Copy quote

• Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.

  William Stafford

  Breathe, Rhythm

  William Stafford (1978). “Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation”

  22 Copy quote

• There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

  William Stafford

  Block, Enough, Lows

  34 Copy quote

• Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.

  William Stafford

  Beach, Believe, Ocean

  William Stafford (1998). “The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems”, Graywolf Press

  10 Copy quote

• A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.

  William Stafford

  Process, Found, New Things

  William Stafford (1978). “Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation”

  10 Copy quote

• Writing itself is one of the great, free human activities. There is scope for individuality, and elation, and discovery. In writing, for the person who follows with trust and forgiveness what occurs to him, the world remains always ready and deep, an inexhaustible environment, with the combined vividness of an actuality and flexibility of a dream. Working back and forth between experience and thought, writers have more than space and time can offer. They have the whole unexplored realm of human vision.

  William Stafford

  Dream, Writing, Space

  26 Copy quote

• Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.

  William Stafford

  Life, Wisdom, Learning

  William Stafford (2014). “Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford”, p.34, Macmillan

  27 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Stafford

  Stars, Home, Missing

  William Stafford, Kim Robert Stafford (2003). “Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War”, p.89, Milkweed Editions

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Stafford

  Writing, Mind, Pieces

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Bird, Said, Heard

  William Stafford (1998). “The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems”, Graywolf Press

  18 Copy quote

• The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.

  William Stafford

  Giving, Darkness, Should

  William Stafford, Kim Robert Stafford (2003). “Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War”, p.90, Milkweed Editions

  4 Copy quote

• I have a feeling that art is something you do for yourself, and that any time you turn your decisions over to someone else you're postponing at best, your own development. The atmosphere of the workshop should be that of trying out one's own work and accepting the signals from others but not accepting the dictation of others because that is a violation of the spirit of art. Art can't be done by somebody else, it has got to be done by the artist.

  William Stafford

  Art, Teaching, Decision

  William Stafford, Paul Merchant, Vincent Wixon (2003). “The answers are inside the mountains: meditations on the writing life”, Univ of Michigan Pr

  21 Copy quote

• The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.

  William Stafford

  Ownership, Glances

  William Stafford (1977). “Stories that could be true: new and collected poems”, HarperCollins Publishers

  11 Copy quote

• ...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.

  William Stafford

  Fear, Going Away, World

  William Stafford (1998). “The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems”, Graywolf Press

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Stafford

  Grateful, Gold, Safe

  William Stafford, Kim Robert Stafford (2003). “Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War”, p.99, Milkweed Editions

  144 Copy quote

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