William Stafford Quotes

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.

I have this feeling of wending my way or plundering through a mysterious jungle of possibilities when I am writing. This jungle has not been explored by previous writers. It never will be explored. It's endlessly varying as we progress through the experience of time. These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.

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

Evening came, a paw, to the gray hut by the river.

Reluctant hero, drafted again each Fourthof July, I'll bow and remember you. Whoshall we follow next? Who shall we killnext time?

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

Wisdom is having things right in your lifeand knowing why.