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1 " I've triedto become someone else for a while,only to discover that he, too, was me. "
― Stephen Dunn
2 " I'll say I love you,Which will lead, of course,to disappointment,but those words unsaidpoison every next moment.I will try to disappoint youbetter than anyone else has. "
― Stephen Dunn , Different Hours
3 " ConnubialBecause with alarming accuracy she’d been identifying patterns I was unaware of—this tic, that tendency, like the way I've mastered the language of intimacy in order to conceal how I felt— I knew I was in danger of being terribly understood. "
4 " I will try to disappoint youbetter than anyone else has. "
5 " Bring to me, it said, continual proof / you've been alive. "
6 " Where are we going? It’s not an issue of here or there. And if you ever feel you can’t take another step, imagine how you might feel to arrive, if not wiser, a little more aware how to inhabit the middle ground between misery and joy. Trudge on. In the higher regions, where the footing is unsure, to trudge is to survive. "
― Stephen Dunn , Lines of Defense: Poems
7 " Altruism is for thosewho can't endure their desires.There's a worldas ambiguous as a moan,a pleasure moanour earnest neighborsmight think a crime.It's where we could live.I'll say I love you,Which will lead, of course,to disappointment,but those words unsaidpoison every next moment.I will try to disappoint youbetter than anyone else has.--Mon Semblable "
8 " Anyone out without the excuse of a dog should be handcuffed and searched for loneliness. "
9 " All good poems are victories over something. "
10 " I’ll always deny that I kissed her.I was just whispering into her mouth. "
― Stephen Dunn , Loosestrife
11 " All I wanted was a job like a book so good I'd be finishing it for the rest of my life. "
12 " I’ve had it with all stingy-hearted sons of bitches.A heart is to be spent. "
13 " I love what's left after love has been tested. "
14 " When I stop becoming, that's when I worry. "
15 " Now and again I feel the astonishment of being alive like this, in this body. "
― Stephen Dunn , New and Selected Poems, 1974-1994
16 " Although I know it's unfair, I reveal myself one mask at a time. "
17 " I make myself up from everything I am, or could be. For many years I was more desire than fact. When I stop becoming, that’s when I worry. "
― Stephen Dunn , Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry
18 " May you turnstone, my daughter,into silk. May you make men better than they are. "
19 " Originality, of course, is what occurs when something new arises out of what's already been done. "
20 " There are always the simple events of your life that you might try to convert into legend. "
