151 Quotes by William Stafford

The Way It IsThere’s a thread you follow. It goes amongthings 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 hurtor 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 ~

Wisdom is having things right in your lifeand knowing why.

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.

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

I heard a bird congratulating itselfall day for being a jay.Nobody cared. But it was gladall over again, and said so, again.

This dream the world is having about itselfincludes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,a groove in the grass my father showed us allone day while meadowlarks were trying to tellsomething better about to happen.

. . . On a sandbarsunlight stretches out its limbs, or is ita sycamore, so brazen, so clean and bold?

Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.

Your job is to find out what the world is trying to be.