Stephen Dobyns Quotes

#1. Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason.

Stephen Dobyns

#2. It's peculiar to eat naked, but not crazy. What's crazy is to shoot yourself. You've got to get these things in perspective.

Stephen Dobyns

#3. Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences. (28)

Stephen Dobyns

#4. 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)

Stephen Dobyns

#5. 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

#6. I write poems to find out why I write them

Stephen Dobyns

#7. 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.

Stephen Dobyns

#8. 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.

Stephen Dobyns

#9. Like this week." "So you're Carl's replacement?" "I guess you could say that.

Stephen Dobyns

#10. 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.

Stephen Dobyns

#11. You should welcome your ignorance because it enables you to learn. (31)

Stephen Dobyns

#12. A poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms.

Stephen Dobyns

#13. If it weren't for the Chicagos and Detroits and Toledos, the terrible things would spread out across the whole country and make trouble for everybody else. Such places were collectors of badness in the way hospitals were collectors of the sick and damaged.

Stephen Dobyns

#14. It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

Stephen Dobyns

#15. 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.

Stephen Dobyns

#16. One writes a poem when one is so taken up by an emotional concept that one is unable to remain silent.

Stephen Dobyns

#17. If he could not find beauty, nothing else would be worth finding.

Stephen Dobyns

#18. 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)

Stephen Dobyns

#19. Most women are more into real estate than sex. They want to own you.

Stephen Dobyns

#20. He was husky, barrel-chested, and my age. The belly was a work in progress. It's the name that was important. He was part-time tough, like I said. Basically he's an accountant and works at a place downtown. He's really dead?" "Well," says Manny, "I didn't check his pulse, but he was in two pieces.

Stephen Dobyns