William Stafford
William Stafford
Prolific American poet and 1970 U.S. Poet Laureate who won the National Book Award for Traveling Through the Dark. His numerous other works include In the Clock of Reason, Brother Wind, Passwords, and Wyoming Circuit.
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth17 January 1914
CountryUnited States of America
talking needs ifs
You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about
block enough lows
There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.
world hearing rich
The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing the things you do not have to hear dulls your hearing. And the things you know before you hear them; these are you and the reason you are in the world.
morning party thinking
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.
kindness not-giving-up thoughtful
I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
dance children kids
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
developing language occur relation using words
These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.
Even the upper end of the riverbelieves in the ocean.
acting lives saddest self wisdom
The saddest are those not right in their lives who are acting to make things right for others: they act only from the self -- and that self will never be right: no luck, no help, no wisdom.
developing language occur relation using words
These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.
art teaching decision
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.
butterfly discovery experience
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.
hurt mistake hate
Ask Me Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. 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.
beach ocean believe
Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.