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

- Stephen Dunn

Isn't there a curious elegance in how one moment passes into another?

- Stephen Dunn

A good many of my poems over the years have alluded to or taken on the political. Stevens has a line in one of his essays: "Reality exerts pressure o…

- Stephen Dunn

I’ve had it with all stingy-hearted sons of bitches. A heart is to be spent.

- Stephen Dunn

I’ll always deny that I kissed her. I was just whispering into her mouth.

- Stephen Dunn

Altruism is for those who can't endure their desires. There's a world as ambiguous as a moan, a pleasure moan our earnest neighbors might think a cri…

- Stephen Dunn

What feeling feels like over time. An attempt to screw up what feeling feels like over time. Heartbreak and a high C.... The often welcome melodic li…

- Stephen Dunn

I wrote poetry for seven or eight years, maybe longer, before I could say I was a poet. If people asked, I'd say I wrote poetry; I wouldn't go furthe…

- Stephen Dunn

Everything I can't see / is at least as real as what I can.

- Stephen Dunn