Stephen Dunn

I've tried

to become someone else for a while,
only to discover that he, too, was me.
― Stephen Dunn

I knew I was in danger
of being terribly understood.
― Stephen Dunn

I’ll always deny that I kissed her.
I was just whispering into her mouth.
― Stephen Dunn, Loosestrife

Now and again I feel the astonishment of being alive like this, in this body.
― Stephen Dunn, New and Selected Poems, 1974-1994

“When I stop becoming, that's when I worry.”
― Stephen Dunn

“I think one of my early motivations for writing was that other people’s versions of experience didn’t gel with my own. It was a gesture toward sanity to try to get the world right for myself. I’ve since learned that if you get it right for yourself, it often has resonance for others.”

“You must be a little driven, and what you’re doing must be crucial to you in order not to be defeated by the likely neglect that awaits you, the lack of rewards, and the fact that, by and large, your culture doesn’t take you seriously.”