William Stafford Quotes

They tell how it was, and how time
came along, and how it happened
again and again. They tell
the slant life takes when it turns
and slashes your face as a friend. - William Stafford

These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it. - William Stafford

The world speaks everything to us.
It is our only friend. - William Stafford

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. - William Stafford

The ocean and I have many pebbles
To find and wash off and roll into shape. - William Stafford

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. - William Stafford

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. - William Stafford

So, the world happens twice --
once what we see it as;
second it legends itself
deep, the way it is. - William Stafford

Silence on a hill where the path ended
and then the forest below
moving in one long whisper
as evening touched the leaves. - William Stafford

Shelter in winter that day --
a storm coming, but in the lee
of an island in a cover with friends --
oh, little bright cup of sun. - William Stafford

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