Stephen Dunn Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

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

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
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 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
Originality, of course, is what occurs when something new arises out of what's already been done.

Stephen Dunn
There are always the simple events of your life that you might try to convert into legend.

Stephen Dunn
Now and again I feel the astonishment of being alive like this, in this body.

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

Stephen Dunn
I'll always deny that I kissed her. I was just whispering into her mouth.

Stephen Dunn
Better to be furious at one thing, become radiant with purpose. Better to love links and rhythms than all-embracing answers.

Stephen Dunn
Oh abstractions are just abstract
until they have an ache in them.

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

Stephen Dunn
And the words we find are always insufficient, like love, though they are often lovely and all we have.

Stephen Dunn