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Quote by Stephen Dobyns

“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.”

Quote by Stephen Dobyns

Author

Stephen Dobyns is an American poet born on February 19, 1941. His poetry is known for its profound emotion and rich imagination, covering a wide range of themes including love, death, history, and religion. more

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“I majored in English in college and that was my major in graduate school before switching to creative writing. I read a lot of [Charles] Dickens and [Anthony ] Trollope, but there was lots of stuff I hadn't read like Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," which is so well written and funny.”

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Author:Stephen Dobyns

“I had not read George Eliot, so read a few. I felt ashamed I hadn't read "Middlemarch" before.”

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“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.”

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“Other than fiction and poetry I tend to read history.”

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“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."”

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“Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.”

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Book:The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784

Source: The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784

“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.”

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Author:Stephen Dobyns

“I'm reading a manuscript by Rodney Jones, "Village Prodigies",it's one of the best contemporary poetry books I've ever read ever.”

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“There's a Welsh poet, R.S. Thomas. He was a very crotchety, strange man, but his poems are wonderful. He was nominated for the Nobel in the 1990s but never won.”

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Author:Stephen Dobyns

“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." .”

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Author:Stephen Dobyns