Quotes by William Stafford

William Stafford

‘Be alive,’ the land says, ‘listen – this is your time, your world, your pleasure.’

Alive

Land

World

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

Crafts

Jokes

Serious

A student brings something to discuss, saying, “I don’t know whether this is really good, or whether I should throw it in the wastebasket.” The assumption is that one or the other choice is the right move. No. Almost everything we say or think or do – or write – comes in that spacious human area bounded by something this side of the sublime and something above the unforgivable.

Moving

Teaching

Writing

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.

Found

New Things

Process

All still when summer is over stand shocks in the field, nothing left to whisper, not even good-bye, to the wind. After summer was over we knew winter would come: we knew silence would wait, tall, patient calm.

Summer

Wind

Winter

And the things you know before you hear them; these are you and the reason you are in the world.

Knows

Reason

World

Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.

Breathe

Rhythm

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?

Caring

People

Real

I am not learning definitions as established in even the latest dictionaries. I am not a dictionary-maker. I am a person a dictionary-maker has to contend with. I am a living evidence in the development of language.

Definitions

Development

Language

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.

Art

Decision

Teaching

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Admirable

Alive

Art

Artist

Assuming

Bird

Birth

Block

Breathe

Breathing

Can Do

Caring

Character

Children

Compassion

Crafts

Dance

Dark

Decision

Definitions

Development

Dies

Distraction

Earth

Enough

Found

Getting Lost

Giving Up

Half

Hearing

Honest

Hurt

Jokes

Journey

Kids

Kind

Kindness

Kings

Kitchen

Knows

Land

Language

Learning

Letting Go

Life

Life Is

Lilies

Long

Lows

Lying

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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The Autobiography

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The Behaviour Diary

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The Dating Diary

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The Relationship Therapist

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Quotes by William Stafford

William Stafford

‘Be alive,’ the land says, ‘listen – this is your time, your world, your pleasure.’

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

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.

All still when summer is over stand shocks in the field, nothing left to whisper, not even good-bye, to the wind. After summer was over we knew winter would come: we knew silence would wait, tall, patient calm.

And the things you know before you hear them; these are you and the reason you are in the world.

Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.

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 am not learning definitions as established in even the latest dictionaries. I am not a dictionary-maker. I am a person a dictionary-maker has to contend with. I am a living evidence in the development of language.

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Topics by William Stafford

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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