"I do feel at home in the world. I have genuinely felt throughout my life a sense that any acceptance of what I write is a bonus, a gift from other people. It’s not something that’s due me. When any editor has a place for some of my work, that’s fine, but I always send that stamped return envelope. I’m genuinely ready for those rejections. I’ve always felt that an editor’s role is to get the best possible material for the readers of the publication, not to serve the writer, not at all. If they don’t want it, I don’t want them to have it. So I never have felt that I needed to push this stuff into the world. If it’s invited in, then it will come in. If it’s not invited in, fine, it will live at home."
– William Stafford, The Paris Review
