Richard Siken Quotes

Quotes about:

• We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.

  Richard Siken

  Stars, Hero, Violence

  23 Copy quote

• Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.

  Richard Siken

  Wall, Fall, Taken

  41 Copy quote

• Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube?

  Richard Siken

  Stars, Names, Too Much

  19 Copy quote

• I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.

  Richard Siken

  Dream, Sleep

  50 Copy quote

• Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?

  Richard Siken

  Forgiving, Horrible, Staring

  9 Copy quote

• You play along, because you want to die for love, you always have.

  Richard Siken

  Love You, Play, Want

  19 Copy quote

• You're trying not to tell him you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.

  Richard Siken

  Prayer, Heart, Names

  49 Copy quote

• You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.

  Richard Siken

  Together, Stitches, Remember

  Richard Siken, “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

  32 Copy quote

• Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing, and not all of those things are good. The truth is complicated. It’s two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet. I used to think that if I dug deep enough to discover something sad and ugly, I’d know it was something true. Now I’m trying to dig deeper. I didn’t want to write these pages until there were no hard feelings, no sharp ones. I do not have that luxury. I am sad and angry and I want everyone to be alive again. I want more landmarks, less landmines. I want to be grateful but I’m having a hard time with it.

  Richard Siken

  Grateful, Writing, Thinking

  38 Copy quote

• When you have nothing to say,
  set something on fire.

  Richard Siken

  Fire

  5 Copy quote

• Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. These, our bodies, possessed by light. Tell me we'll never get used to it.

  Richard Siken

  Light, And Love, Body

  7 Copy quote

• He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.

  Richard Siken

  Moon, Hands, Pointing

  Richard Siken (2015). “War of the Foxes”, p.46, Copper Canyon Press

  25 Copy quote

• Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.

  Richard Siken

  Sides, Sometimes, Ends

  33 Copy quote

• A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river                     but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away                                                                         but then he’s still left with his hands.

  Richard Siken

  Sadness, Men, Hands

  39 Copy quote

• Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.

  Richard Siken

  Want, Scared

  11 Copy quote

• I’m not suggesting the world is good, that life is easy, or that any of us are entitled to better. But please, isn’t this the kind of thing you talk about in somber tones, in the afternoon, with some degree of hope and maybe even a handful of strategies?

  Richard Siken

  Degrees, Afternoon, World

  8 Copy quote

• I don't know where I end and the world begins. My best guess? Skin. It's the only actual boundary between the body and the world, between a body and any other body.

  Richard Siken

  Skins, World, Body

  13 Copy quote

• You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.

  Richard Siken

  Joy, Sound, Mouths

  18 Copy quote

• Everyone needs a place. It shouldn't be inside of someone else.

  Richard Siken

  Needs

  Richard Siken (2015). “War of the Foxes”, p.38, Copper Canyon Press

  24 Copy quote

• I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made any sense, anything.

  Richard Siken

  Morning, Blood, Listening

  9 Copy quote

• Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

  Richard Siken

  Crush, Lovers, Destroyed

  Richard Siken, “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

  9 Copy quote

• I'm saying your name in the grocery store, I'm saying your name on the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal covered with frost, your name like a music that's been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud, a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails in wind and the slap of waves on the hull.

  Richard Siken

  Animal, Glasses, Wind

  18 Copy quote

• I wanted to be wanted and he was very beautiful, kissed with his eyes closed, and only felt good while moving. You could drown in those eyes, I said, so it’s summer, so it’s suicide, so we’re helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.

  Richard Siken

  Beautiful, Summer, Suicide

  6 Copy quote

• ...you're waiting because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together but here we are in the weeds again, here we are in the bowels of the thing: your world doesn't make sense.

  Richard Siken

  Weed, Waiting, Together

  15 Copy quote

• Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later.

  Richard Siken

  Dream, Writing, Glasses

  Richard Siken, “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

  6 Copy quote

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