I don't know how to sit outside myself and test against a hypothetical self who stayed home.
Thom Gunn

Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help.
Thom Gunn

I admired what my students were writing, but I think their improvement doesn't directly result from me but from being in a class, being with each other.
Thom Gunn

I had assumed that I would age with all my friends growing old around me, dying off very gradually one by one. And here was a plague that cut them off so early.
Thom Gunn

I notice that students, particularly for gay students, it's too easy to write about my last trick or something. It's not very interesting to the reader.
Thom Gunn

I deliberately wrote a poem in my last book where I was suggesting that there are other passions as great as or more important than the passion of sex.
Thom Gunn

As humans we look at things and think about what we've looked at. We treasure it in a kind of private art gallery.
Thom Gunn

It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!
Thom Gunn