Top 15 William Stafford Quotes

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

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 ~

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

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

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.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider — -
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — -yes or no, or maybe — -
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

...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.

I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.

"They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
"Who are you really, wanderer?" — and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
"Maybe I'm a king.

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.

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.

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

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That's why we wake
and look out - no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.

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?

A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.

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