William Stafford Quotes about Writing

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

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.

William Stafford

Dream, Writing, Space

What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.

William Stafford

Writing, Matter, No Matter What

William Stafford, Paul Merchant, Vincent Wixon (2003). “The answers are inside the mountains: meditations on the writing life”, Univ of Michigan Pr

A student comes to me with a piece of writing, holds it out, says, 'Is this good?' A whole sequence of emergencies goes off in my mind. That's not a question to ask anyone but yourself.

William Stafford

Writing, Mind, Pieces

A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.

William Stafford

Writing, Process, Found

William Stafford (1978). “Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation”

You shouldn't have standards that inhibit you from writing It really doesn't make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you've done it.

William Stafford

Writing, Assessment, Differences

I don't see writing as a communication of something already discovered, as "truths" already known. Rather, I see writing as a job of experiment. It's like any discovery job; you don't know what's going to happen until you try it.

William Stafford

Jobs, Communication, Writing

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.

William Stafford

Writing, Feelings, Progress

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.

William Stafford

Moving, Teaching, Writing

William Stafford Quotes about Writing

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