Quotes from William Stafford

Father and son No sound - a spell- on, on out where the wind went, our kite sent back its thrill along the string that sagged but sang and said, "I'm here! I'm here!" - till broke somewhere, gone years ago, but sailed forever clear of earth. I hold-whatever tugs the other end-I hold that string.

They say that history is going on somewhere. They say it won't stop. I have held One picture still for a long time and waited.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.

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.

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.

Why I Am Happy Now has come, an easy time. I let it roll. There is a lake somewhere so blue and far nobody owns it. A wind comes by and a willow listens gracefully. I hear all this, every summer. I laugh and cry for every turn of the world, its terribly cold, innocent spin. That lake stays blue and free; it goes on and on. And I know where it is.

When a goat likes a book, the whole book is gone, and the meaning has to go find an author again. - The Trouble With Reading

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.

In every town we lived in, there was one great big door ready to open for anyone — the library. And I never met a library I didn't like.

This dream the world is having about itself includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail, a groove in the grass my father showed us all one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell something better about to happen.

I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now?