Richard Siken Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.

  Richard Siken

  Desire, Kind, Minutes

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

  4 Copy quote

• This is my favorite part. It starts and ends here. The pebbles shine, the plan worked, Hansel Triumphant. Lesson number one: be sneaky and have a plan. But the stupid boy goes back, makes the rest of the story postscript and aftermath. He shouldn’t have gone back. And this is the second lesson I took from the story: when someone is trying to ditch you, kill you, never go back.

  Richard Siken

  Stupid, Boys, Numbers

  10 Copy quote

• You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.

  Richard Siken

  Fall, Swimming, Breathing

  4 Copy quote

• You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened. Your co-workers ask if everything's okay and you tell them you're just tired. And you're trying to smile. And they're trying to smile.

  Richard Siken

  Tired, Next Day, Trying

  4 Copy quote

• Everything affects my poetry, every day something happens that changes me forever. I’m susceptible and plastic, thin-skinned and moody.

  Richard Siken

  Forever, Plastic, Moody

  8 Copy quote

• You are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is your brother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seen you naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your boyfriend Jeff gets up to answer the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room.

  Richard Siken

  Brother, Father, Sleep

  6 Copy quote

• Knot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story.

  Richard Siken

  Dream, Real, Sleep

  8 Copy quote

• A kid under a tablecloth insists he’s a ghost. A table underneath a tablecloth is, I guess, like the rest of us, only pretending to be invisible.

  Richard Siken

  Kids, Tables, Ghost

  4 Copy quote

• He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place – well then, game over.

  Richard Siken

  Heart, Thinking, Games

  4 Copy quote

• I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way, and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way. But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. There were some nice parts, sure, all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas and the grain of sugar on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry it's such a lousy story.

  Richard Siken

  Sorry, Nice, Numbers

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

  7 Copy quote

• I am singing now while Rome burns.

  Richard Siken

  Rome, Singing

  4 Copy quote

• We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven...

  Richard Siken

  Stars, Forgiven, Touched

  4 Copy quote

• Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero.

  Richard Siken

  Hero, Dragons, Bigs

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

  4 Copy quote

• Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere.

  Richard Siken

  Dragons, Flames, Love Always

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

  9 Copy quote

• Fairy tales have rules. You are a princess or you aren’t. You are pure at heart or you aren’t. If you are pure at heart, or lucky, you might catch a break.

  Richard Siken

  Princess, Heart, Lucky

  6 Copy quote

• I wouldn’t kill your pony. I’d like to believe it, anyway. I’d like to believe I wouldn’t drag you out in to the woods and leave you there, either. So far, it hasn’t come up.

  Richard Siken

  Believe, Ponies, Woods

  4 Copy quote

• Someone is digging your grave right now.

  Richard Siken

  Digging, Graves, Right Now

  4 Copy quote

• From the landscape: a sense of scale. From the dead: a sense of scale.

  Richard Siken

  Landscape, Scales

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

  4 Copy quote

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