William Edgar Stafford Quotes

Wisdom is having things right in your life
and 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.

This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

There may be losses too great to understand
That rove after you and-faint and terrible-
rip unknown through your hand.

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