William Stafford Quotes
The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them — those are you, those are why you are in the world.
Quotes to Explore
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I live in southern Appalachia, so I'm surrounded by people who work very hard for barely a living wage. It's particularly painful that people are working the farms their parents and grandparents worked but aren't living nearly as well.
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I think that my parents' divorce gave me a very strong sense of self-reliance and independence. I realised that I needed to make sure I could support myself because you don't know what's going to happen in the future.
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For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn't really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I'm trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.
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It's my private life, and it's not up for grabs.
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I made my parents crazy. As a kid, I redecorated my bedroom every month. I would literally save my allowance and go buy things.
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As every scuba diver knows, panic is your worst enemy: when it hits, your mind starts to thrash and you are likely to do something really stupid and self-destructive.
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I thought that communism, the tyranny of communism, was an abomination and I beseeched God to bring that terrible evil down and he did. It was a great triumph, it took awhile, but it happened.
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Detroit's industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching.
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I haven't listened to much music lately; I've been out of it.
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No phone, a movie, a glass of wine, and some salad. Perfect!
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Real genius of moral insight is a motor which will start any engine.
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The end of confession is to tell the truth to and for oneself.
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Pure geometrical regularity gives a certain pleasure to men troubled by the obscurity of outside appearance. The geometrical line is something absolutely distinct from the messiness, the confusion, and the accidental details of existing things.
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Enjoy every sandwich.
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Between now and then and I just felt it was ready and it was a long enough period gone by. I obviously didn't want to hurt anybody, you know. It was done out of a genuine memorial or tribute whatever you want to call it.
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I'm a firm believer that the world should be your oyster when you're cooking. People should open themselves to other cuisines - there are a lot of hidden secrets all over the world.
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The motivation should come from regulatory enforcement, but enforcement is weak, and environmental litigation is near to impossible. So there's an urgent need for extensive public participation to generate another kind of motivation.
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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
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It won't do away with hierarchy totally, but the principal leader will be the person who most exemplifies the kind of organization and behavior required who is best able to create the conditions such organizations require.
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Don't give your money to the church. They should be giving their money to you.
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The worst of all listeners is the man who does nothing but listen.
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I got to write most of everything I said.
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I try to make the good days great and take something positive from the days I'm not feeling good - work on technique or something like that.
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The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them — those are you, those are why you are in the world.
