William Stafford Quotes

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.

Let us create extraordinary words, on condition that they be put to the most ordinary use and that the entity they designate be made to exist in the same way as the most common object.

A lot can be told from what happens in between the main moments.

I have done no passably decent job in this world which did not at first seem to me useless - absurdly useless, useless to the point of nausea. My secret demon is called:;: What's the use?

Art like life is an open secret.

I don't feel like I have to use big words or theories to get my point across. People are like, "Whoa. That's crazy" and make it into this crazy thing.

One of the secrets of getting more done is to make a TO DO List every day, keep it visible, and use it as a guide to action as you go through the day.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power.

Silence is a form of communication, too. Sometimes less is more.

The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . . . I find myself totally unable to accept . . . . Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense.

One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word.

Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.

The less manifest the work, the stronger: as though a secret law demanded it always be hidden in what it shows, thus showing what must remain hidden, only showing it, in the end, by dissimulation.

At any given time, there are ideas and images that can only be communicated indirectly.

Yet the deepest truths are best read between the lines, and, for the most part, refuse to be written.

Truth can arrive within the story and ride latent - a bit incognito - within a story, and people are more prone to receive it.

To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text.

I use a lot of double meanings. I hide 'em like Easter eggs.

What I have written is but a fleeting intimation of the outside of what one man sees and may tell about the path he walks. No one shares the secret of a life; no one enters into the heart of the mystery.

When I was 12 years old, I was obsessed with codes, conspiracies, and secret messages. I would record TV commercials with SoundRecorder.exe on Windows 95 and reverse them to see if I was being subliminally influenced to watch Pokémon by Japanese spies.

Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.

The mysterious does not spell itself out in capital letters, as many writers believe, but is always between, an interstice.

One should use common words to say uncommon things

The singular secret of khaddar lies in its saleability in the place of its production and use by the manufacturers themselves.