All good poems are victories over something.

— Stephen Dunn

Altruism is for those who can't endure their desires. There's a worlds ambiguous as a moan, a pleasure moan our earnest neighbors might 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 unsaid poison every next moment. I will try to disappoint you better than anyone else has.--Mon Semblable

— Stephen Dunn

Anyone out without the excuse of a dog should be handcuffed and searched for loneliness.

— Stephen Dunn

Bring to me, it said, continual proof / you've been alive.

— Stephen Dunn

Connubial Because 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.

— Stephen Dunn

I'll say I love you, Which will lead, of course, to disappointment, but those words unsaid poison every next moment. I will try to disappoint you better than anyone else has.

— Stephen Dunn

I've tried to become someone else for a while, only to discover that he, too, was me.

— Stephen Dunn

I will try to disappoint you better than anyone else has.

— Stephen Dunn

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