Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.
William StaffordThe more you let yourself be distracted from where you are going, the more you are the person that you are. It's not so much like getting lost as it is like getting found.
William StaffordI keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
William StaffordWriting 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.
William StaffordThe Way It Is Thereโs a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesnโt change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you canโt get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop timeโs unfolding. You donโt ever let go of the thread. ~ William Stafford ~
William Stafford