Stephen Dobyns Quotes

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All quotes by Stephen Dobyns: Books Reading Writing more...
  • When a philosopher, scientist, or psychologist discusses the discrepancy between the actual and the ideal, he or she attempts to convince us with the tools of discursive thought ... An artist does it differently ... their primary approach is different, even though both groups, if you will, are investigating the actual, the ideal, and the discrepancy in between.

  • These people you used to see every day, friends or acquaintances, after a while they become as distant as any stranger, people you suddenly recall late at night--you remember something they said or something silly that someone once did. For a few moments they completely occupy your mind; then you forget them again.

    Silly   Night   People  
  • Writing is a job, a craft, and you learn it by trying to write every day and by facing the page with humility and gall. And you have to love to read books, all kinds of books, good books. You are not looking for anything in particular; you are just letting stuff seep in.

    Jobs   Book   Humility  
    "Poetry Questions: Stephen Dobyns" by Rebecca Foresman, www.newyorker.com. April 2, 2012.
  • Baudelaire's L'Héautontimorouménos was long seen to be a sexual sadomasochistic poem, it is now generally accepted that the poem is about writing poetry.

    Writing   Long   Poetry  
    Stephen Dobyns (2011). “Next Word, Better Word: The Craft of Writing Poetry”, p.198, Macmillan
  • Let's say someone has experienced a violent trauma or betrayal: a child has been raped by a parent or has witnessed the destruction of someone he loves or has been so traumatized by the possibility of beatings and punishments that he's afraid to act. If the trauma is great enough, that person's life may become frozen, emotionally frozen even though he still gets up in the morning, is busy all day, and goes to bed at night. But there's this empty space that begins to fill with rage, rage toward everyone - the perpetrator, the people in the world who haven't suffered, even toward himself. (174)

    Stephen Dobyns (2015). “Boy in the Water: A Novel”, p.202, Penguin
  • Louise Gluck, C.K. Williams, Thomas Lux. A lot of the poets that I like are the ones that influenced me as a writer.

    Poet  
    Source: www.bostonglobe.com
  • He thinks of that ocean house and wishes he were back in his former life or that one could take one moment and remain inside it like an egg inside its shell, instead of constantly being hurried into the future by good luck or bad.

    Stephen Dobyns (1984). “Black dog, red dog: poems”, Owl Books
  • Most women are more into real estate than sex. They want to own you.

    Sex   Real   Want  
  • It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

    Pain   Doors   Rooms  
  • I'm reading "The Sunset of a Splendid Century" by W.H. Lewis. He was C.S. Lewis's brother. He wrote two books about the French court of Louis XIV that are incredibly detailed. They are books that on every page you say, "Wow, think of that."

    Brother   Reading   Book  
    Source: www.bostonglobe.com
  • I like it to be quiet, and it usually occurs in the morning. There are three or four places in my house where I can write and I like to keep moving around. The moment I find myself falling into a necessary routine, I change it. I'd rather not accumulate superstitions.

    Morning   Moving   Fall  
    "Poetry Questions: Stephen Dobyns" by Rebecca Foresman, www.newyorker.com. April 2, 2012.
  • I think I made a mistake with [Jane] Austen by reading all six in a row. There are similarities to the plots so by the time I got to the last one I could anticipate what was happening too easily. But her characterizations are amazing.

    Source: www.bostonglobe.com
  • Each thing I do, I rush through, so I can do something else.

    Stephen Dobyns, “Pursuit”
  • One writes a poem when one is so taken up by an emotional concept that one is unable to remain silent.

  • I had a period when I read Nobel Prize winners. I figured they had to be good. I discovered some people I didn't know about, like the Icelandic writer Halldor Laxness, who wrote "Independent People." .

    Source: www.bostonglobe.com
  • I'm reading a manuscript by Rodney Jones, "Village Prodigies",it's one of the best contemporary poetry books I've ever read ever.

    Book   Reading   Village  
    Source: www.bostonglobe.com
  • Adolescence is a dreadful period. We tend to notice those youngsters who misbehave and call attention to themselves, but there are others, equally miserable, who receive no help simply because they are silent. (41)

  • Sometimes someone will tell me about an author I've never heard of before and that will send me to that person. That's how I discovered Thomas Bernhard, an Austrian novelist whose novels tend to be one long rant.

    Source: www.bostonglobe.com
  • My poems always begin with a metaphor, but my way into the metaphor may be a word, an image, even a sound. And I rarely know the nature of the metaphor when I begin to write, but there is an attentiveness that a writer develops, a sudden alertness that is much like the feel of a fish brushing against a hook.

    Writing   Sound   Hook  
    "Poetry Questions: Stephen Dobyns" by Rebecca Foresman, www.newyorker.com. April 2, 2012.
  • A poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms.

    Two   Rooms   Window  
    "Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry". Book by Stephen Dobyns, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1996.
  • Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences. (28)

  • They are asleep. This is the condition they prefer. They are afraid of the world and sleep is a way of dealing with their fear. Someday they will wake. Perhaps something frightful will happen. Indeed, there is no better invitation to the frightful than ignorance - that is, sleep. (29)

    Ignorance   Sleep   World  
    Stephen Dobyns (2015). “The Church of Dead Girls: A Novel”, p.32, Penguin
  • I never read Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier." I've been reading books that I should have read years ago and did not. That's one of them.

    Book   Reading   Years  
    Source: www.bostonglobe.com
  • I can't believe there is a poet who hasn't eagerly put down a word one day, only to erase it the next day deciding it was sheer lunacy. It's part of the process of selection.

    "Poetry Questions: Stephen Dobyns" by Rebecca Foresman, www.newyorker.com. April 2, 2012.
  • My wife's dying upstairs and I can't do anything about it. I look in her face and I see the memories there. I see how I hurt her and how I said the wrong things and how I got angry and how I wasn't the man she hoped I'd be. I see that in her face and I see she's going to die with that. You think I'm not preoccupied?

  • I write poems to find out why I write them

    Writing  
    Stephen Dobyns (2013). “Winter's Journey”, p.81, Copper Canyon Press
  • Many of my poems try to use a comic element to reach a place that isn't comic at all. The comic element works as a surprise. It is unexpected and energizing.

    Trying   Use   Elements  
    "Poetry Questions: Stephen Dobyns" by Rebecca Foresman, www.newyorker.com. April 2, 2012.
  • Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason.

    Hate   Needs   Reason  
    Stephen Dobyns (2002). “The Porcupine's Kisses”, Penguin Books
  • Reading a good poem can give me a far bigger kick than a novel. But it's not something I can keep doing. It would be like shooting up 10 times a day.

    Source: epaper.bostonglobe.com
  • There are many reasons for violence. This is just something that sometimes happens. We'd see it in treatment centers - the child who'd suffered something awful. Even in the best recovery there'd be a fear that everything would fall apart and they'd become victims again. And their final loyalty was to themselves. They couldn't be forced. They preferred to wreck everything, preferred self-destruction to surrender. (175)

    Loyalty   Children   Fall  
    Stephen Dobyns (2015). “Boy in the Water: A Novel”, p.203, Penguin
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