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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Although I know it's unfair I reveal myself one mask at a time.”

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

“I think because my parents died in their early 50s, mid 50s, I always thought I would die young. And that's been both a useful thing and I suspect something that's haunted me a little bit.”

“I will try to disappoint youbetter than anyone else has.”