Stafford Quotes & Sayings
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Top Stafford Quotes
It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half. — William Stafford
Nurturing a child's sense of personal worth and therefore hope and dreams for a wonderful future is perhaps the most important responsibility of every grownup in a child's life. — Wess Stafford
People will come to test and divide us, but, as long as we keep compassion in our hearts for others, they won't win. — Stewart Stafford
Once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold, found some limit beyond the waterfall, a season changes and we come back changed but safe, quiet, grateful. — William Stafford
There is, then, a logical priority about the arrangements, and logic has nothing to do with time. — Anthony Stafford Beer
India has indeed a great and free future before her, in which she can make her special contribution to the well-being of mankind. The first and indispensable part of that contribution is to work with the United Nations for the defeat of fascism and of brutal aggression. — Stafford Cripps
I'll probably never put out another album because I'm a tough critic of my work, and I don't think I could come up to those standards any more. — Jo Stafford
Hershey was a source of pride for the townspeople of Smiths Falls, and was the instrument that put food on many tables. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson
It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation ... Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you
you come at it over unmarked snow. — William Stafford
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
[On British Labour politician Stafford Cripps.] — Winston S. Churchill
I really like 'Gladiator.' I like 'The Dark Knight.' I really liked, when I was a kid, 'U.S. Marshalls.' I like funny movies, too. 'Old School' and 'The Hangover.' 'The Hangover' was up there; I liked it. — Matthew Stafford
Time Dreams. They are memories of the soul. They encompass all Time. They exist in the space of a dream. — Tom Stafford
When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell, who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer. — Melvin Burgess
Whenever you feel compelled to put others first at the expense of yourself, you are denying your own reality, your own identity. — David Stafford
Storm Warning
Something not the wind shakes along far
like a sky truck in low gear
over Oregon. Like the shore wind baying along through fir
but not now the wind, no, not really so,
it is a new weight and force
that begins to blow.
This winter they'll still call it wind and let it explore;
and when they talk it over next summer there by the shore,
along through the scrub and salal the new something will range.
In a hurry, late, it won't wait for the air.
In the fall again they'll remember, each of them, back to now.
They'll no longer call it wind, they'll want it all changed.
They'll want it all different then, but they won't know how. — William Stafford
Those times you caught them out and showed them up
they learned how stupid they are. But now you'll never hear the little song of their purring throats, and you'll never know what they think, when you say hello. — William Stafford
I would exchange all that I have written for the next thing. — William Stafford
Looking around, from near the top of Foley Mountain, it was easy to imagine why the early settlers decided to make their home in Westport. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson
Resist trying to be what other people want you to be. Anyone in your life who tries to change you is really saying: as I can't control myself I will try and control you. By the same token, don't attempt to control other people's behaviour - it's not your place. — David Stafford
Children are more than we think they are; they can do more than we think they can do. All they need is a vote of confidence from grownups, whom they will ultimately replace anyway. Their dream today will become the realities of tomorrow. — Wess Stafford
Great acting is as much about the choices a performer makes as it is about their ability. — Stewart Stafford
What you fear will not go away; it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there. — William Stafford
I wasn't driven. I just really loved what I did. — Jo Stafford
Every vivid memory holds some essential truth about your vision of the world — Kim Stafford
It's not the gender that matters, you know that. It's the soul inside that counts. — Chanda Stafford
There is nothing to be intimidated about - it's just another long run where a few more people show up and they happen to wear numbers. — Wess Stafford
But when adults speak up for the vulnerable and the weak, working and demanding that safety and respect prevail, God's little lambs are protected and nourished. They know they are not abandoned; they are loved. And the world becomes a little more like heaven as a result. — Wess Stafford
Evening came, a paw, to the gray hut by the river. — William Stafford
There are three answers to prayer: yes, no, and wait a while. It must be recognized that no is an answer. — Ruth Stafford Peale
Glances
Two people meet. The sky turns winter,
quells whatever they would say.
Then, a periphery glance into danger -
and an avalanche already on its way.
They have been honest all their lives;
careful, calm, never in haste;
they didn't know what it is to meet.
Now they have met: the world is waste.
They find they are riding an avalanche
feeling at rest, all danger gone.
The present looks out of their eyes; they stand
calm and still on a speeding stone. — William Stafford
But codependency is inappropriate, over-the-top loyalty, caring and supportiveness. — David Stafford
If she ever got fat, she thought, or if she ever said anything fat, she would lock herself in a bathroom and stay there until she died," thinks the young protagonist Molly Fawcett. "Often she thought how comfortably you could live in a bathroom. You could put a piece of beaver board on top of the tub and use it as a bed. In the daytime, you could have a cretonne spread on it so that it would look like a divan. You could use the you-know-what as a chair and the lavatory as a table. You wouldn't have to have anything else but some canned corn and marshmallows ... — Jean Stafford
If you don't make a choice, life makes it for you and then you're stuck with what it decides. Take control of your destiny so that doesn't happen — Stewart Stafford
Most mornings I get away, slip out the door before light, set forth on the dim, gray road, letting my feet find a cadence that softly carries me on. Nobody is up - all alone my journey begins. Some — William Stafford
We had some memorable times, on those long, hot summer nights, along the shores of the mighty Rideau; but we were by no means the first to do so. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson
Living on the Plains"
That winter when this thought came-how the river
held still every midnight and flowed
backward a minute-we studied algebra
late in our room fixed up in the barn,
and I would feel the curved relation,
the rafters upside down, and the cows in their life
holding the earth round and ready
to meet itself again when morning came.
At breakfast while my mother stirred the cereal
she said, "You're studying too hard,"
and I would include her face and hands in my glance
and then look past my father's gaze as
he told again our great race through the stars
and how the world can't keep up with our dreams. — William Stafford
Save the world by torturing one innocent child? Which innocent child? — William Stafford
Please think about this as you go on. Breathe on the world. Hold out your hands to it. When morning and evenings roll along, watch how they open and close, how they invite you to the long party that your life is. — William Stafford
They say that history is going on somewhere.
They say it won't stop. I have held
One picture still for a long time and waited. — William Stafford
Despite Lowell's determination to be 'surrounded by Catholics,' the couple instantly got swept up into the fast, loud current of atheist-Jewish-Marxist-hard-drinking-fast-talking literary New York. Philip Rahv and Nathalie Swan took a shine to Lowell and Stafford, and soon they were getting invited to the Rahv's combative, whiskey-soaked parties. — David Laskin
You say that you hope I will be recognized as the best novelist of my generation. I want you to know now and know completely that that would mean to me absolutely nothing. — Jean Stafford
Politicians need citizens who will permit them to behave reasonably. — William Stafford
I hold in my hands the ability to bring about a darkness unheard of since before the dawn of the industrial revolution. Imagine a time after the total collapse of society, a time when there are no longer arguments about the benefits of going off the grid, a time when all men become equal in the struggle to survive a world without order, without law, without hope. Then, and only then, would you and the rest of mankind truly understand the power I wield. - Fortis Lombardi to Prof. Richard Halberstram (from the third installment of the Dark Angel Trilogy) — Sarah Stafford
We think it is calm here, or that our storm is the right size. — William Stafford
On a sandbar
sunlight stretches out its limbs, or is it
a sycamore, so brazen, so clean and bold? — William Stafford
The ritual sacrifice of children has been taboo for thousands of years. Yet tragically it is practiced every day across our world. We sacrifice children on the altars of our most destructive sins. When the sickness of pornography has run to its most evil and destructive end, it takes the form of child pornography. When prostitution reaches its sickest, most depraved form, it becomes child prostitution. — Wess Stafford
Apart altogether from our own vital interests, we cannot and must not desert those other nations who have already gone through so much tragedy and suffering to defeat the evil designs of the Axis powers. — Stafford Cripps
All still when summer is over stand shocks in the field, nothing left to whisper, not even good-bye, to the wind. After summer was over we knew winter would come: we knew silence would wait, tall, patient calm. — William Stafford
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. — William Stafford
While God has done his part in creating a world capable of providing what we need, we have not done our part in the stewardship of it, in seeing that it gets to the end of the line, to the poorest and neediest
the children. — Wess Stafford
A slowly moving queue does not move uniformly. Rather, waves of motion pass down the queue. The frequency and amplitude of these waves is inversely related to the speed at which the queue is served. — Anthony Stafford Beer
Poverty plus confidence equals
pioneers. We never doubted. — William Stafford
Which of the horses
we passed yesterday whinnied
all night in my dreams?
I want that one. — William Stafford
Too close a view may interfere with one's grasp of an overall problem or concept — Anthony Stafford Beer
Father and son
No sound - a spell- on, on out
where the wind went, our kite sent back
its thrill along the string that
sagged but sang and said, "I'm here!
I'm here!" - till broke somewhere,
gone years ago, but sailed forever clear
of earth. I hold-whatever tugs
the other end-I hold that string. — William Stafford
Time Dreams. They are dreams, like any other dream. They are dreams about space and Time. They are reoccurring. They don't happen all at once, or in any particular order. They are random. They seem real, but so does life. What sense is it that — Tom Stafford
I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog. — William Stafford
You are a memory
too strong to leave this world ... — William Stafford
I worked with AXE Hair to do a promo shoot for the ESPYs and ESPN - it's all about having girl-approved hair. They have a newer product out there with the hair stuff - shampoo, conditioner and all the styling products that they have. — Matthew Stafford
There are so many things admirable people do not understand. — William Stafford
It all begins, I maintain, with that powerful and underutilized thing called love. God's love for the individual is displayed by those people who reflect his love in their words and deeds. It ultimately gets understood and accepted by the child in poverty, and through that individual's love for others, the world gets changed. — Wess Stafford
A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu. — William Stafford
Irony, I feel, is a very high form of morality. — Jean Stafford
It would be a mistake to think that fundamentalists are to be found only among the religious. — Stafford Betty
Hope is a Golden Cord... — Cinthia Diane Stafford
On harsh, frigid January days, when the winds are relentless and the snow piles up around us, I often think of our small feathered friends back on the Third Line. I wonder if the old feeder is still standing in the orchard and if anyone thinks to put out a few crumbs and some bacon drippings for our beautiful, hungry, winter birds. In the stark, white landscape they provided a welcome splash of colour and their songs gave us hope through the long, silent winter. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson
All events and experiences are local, somewhere. And all human enhancements of events and experiences
all the arts
are regional in the sense that they derive from immediate relation to felt life.
It is this immediacy that distinguishes art. And paradoxically the more local the feeling in art, the more all people can share it; for that vivid encounter with the stuff of the world is our common ground.
Artists, knowing this mutual enrichment that extends everywhere, can act, and praise, and criticize, as insiders
the means of art is the life of all people. And that life grows and improves by being shared. Hence, it is good to welcome any region you live in or come to, or think of, for that is where life happens to be, right where you are. — William Stafford
Success is the bridge between insanity and credibility. — Stewart Stafford
Alcoholism is above all a disease of denial. — David Stafford
Don't listen to advice. Give yourself the freedom to make your own errors, it's the only way you'll learn. — Stewart Stafford
Would you like me to write Mrs. Ames about inviting you to Yaddo? Get Miss Moore to write too. You can't invite yourself, though, of course, almost all the invitations are planned. It would be marvelous to have you there. I know the solitude that gets too much. It doesn't drug me, but I get fantastic and uncivilized.
At last my divorce [from Jean Stafford] is over. It's funny at my age to have one's life so much in and on one's hands. All the rawness of learning, what I used to think should be done with by twenty-five. Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction, so I'm thankful, and call it good, as Eliot would say. — Robert Lowell
Smoking wildwood flower got to be a habit, we didn't see no harm. We thought it was kind of handy, to take a trip and never leave the farm. — Jim Stafford
Productive power is the foundation of a country's economic strength. — Stafford Cripps
An Afternoon in the Stacks
Closing the book, I find I have left my head
inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open
their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound,
words adjusting themselves to their meaning.
Long passages open at successive pages. An echo,
continuous from the title onward, hums
behind me. From in here the world looms,
a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences
carved out when an author traveled and a reader
kept the way open. When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.
A candleflame in Tibet leans when I move. — William Stafford
So why is a third of our world battling obesity and spending huge sums to burn off excess calories, while the other two-thirds yearn to get more of them? — Wess Stafford
Yes
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That's why we wake
and look out - no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening. — William Stafford
It go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require — P.G. Wodehouse
The 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 Stafford
Between roars the lion purrs. — William Stafford
It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code. — William Stafford
Waiting for God"
This morning I breathed in. It had rained
early and the sycamore leaves tapped
a few drops that remained, while waving
the air's memory back and forth
over the lawn and into our open
window. Then I breathed out.
This deliberate day eased
past the calendar and waited. Patiently
the sun instructed the shadows how to move;
it held them, guided their gradual defining.
In the great quiet I carried my life on,
in again, out again. — William Stafford
The earth says have a place, be what that place
requires; hear the sound the birds imply
and see as deep as ridges go behind
each other. — William Stafford
But it is a fallacy, if one is examining the methods by which security can be attained, to start upon the assumption, as so many hon. Members do, that we get security by an increase of air armaments or an increase of any other form of armaments. — Stafford Cripps
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
Were I to die tomorrow, my soul would remember you.
~Nicholas Stafford — Jude Deveraux
Afterwards
Mostly you look back and say, "Well, OK. Things might have been different, sure, and it's not too bad, but look - things happen like that, and you did what you could."
You go back and pick up the pieces. There's tomorrow. There's that long bend in the river on the way home. Fluffy bursts of milkweed are floating through shafts of sunlight or disappearing where trees reach out from their deep dark roots.
Maybe people have to go in and out of shadows till they learn that floating, that immensity waiting to receive whatever arrives with trust. Maybe somebody has to explore what happens when one of us wanders over near the edge and falls for awhile. Maybe it was your turn. — William Stafford
Non-alcoholic ways in which parents may not 'be there' for the children can include:
- violence and sexual abuse
- workholism
- gambling
- transquilliser addiction-
- womanizing
- frequent journeys abroad
- death
- suicide
- being unemployed or unemployable
- frequent hospitalisation
- mental or physical handicap
- excessive religiosity
- rigid rules and regulations
- homes where children are never allowed to be themselves but must always be pleasing to adults — David Stafford
We need only to close our eyes and we are back on the Third Line, walking up the lane, through the yard and entering the bright, warm kitchen. We are home again. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson
I Have a Witness"
Sometimes a center the soul can recognize
will speak from anywhere , inside a mountain, or from
a whirlwind ... The world can take, the soul
restores. A million wrong voices proclaim
One light lives forever. — William Stafford
Writing is the spectrum through which the chaos of life can be seen, studied and understood. — Stewart Stafford
Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions. — William Stafford
Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say. — William Stafford
You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about. — William Stafford