Quotessence
Home / Authors / William Stafford
William Stafford

William Stafford Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

AllKnowsWorldWritingIfsWayPeoplePersonsHappensWholeDoneFoundKindLanguagePoetryRiversArtistDiscoveryGivingMayPoet

Famous William Stafford Quotes

“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.”

WayWritingFeelingsLanguageProgressPossibilityRelationMysteriousMy WayDevelopingJungle
Author:William Stafford
Create image

“Writing itself is one of the great, free human activities. There is scope for individuality, and elation, and discovery. In writing, for the person who follows with trust and forgiveness what occurs to him, the world remains always ready and deep, an inexhaustible environment, with the combined vividness of an actuality and flexibility of a dream. Working back and forth between experience and thought, writers have more than space and time can offer. They have the whole unexplored realm of human vision.”

WorldWritingHumansPersonsWholeDreamSpaceVisionEnvironmentReadyOffersActivityDiscoveryRemainsIndividualityRealmsFlexibilityTime And SpaceScopeBack And ForthHuman ActivityActualityUnexploredElationVividness
Author:William Stafford
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingKnowsShouldWritingHumansMovingChoicesSidesTeachingStudentsAreasAssumptionSublimeUnforgivable
Author:William Stafford
Create image