Richard Siken Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you.

  Richard Siken

  Sleep, Romantic Love, Usual

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

  7 Copy quote

• Here I am in a rabbit run, here I am in a valley of pine, waiting for you to find me. I could pretend I’m speaking to everyone—assume a middle distance and transcend myself—but I’m taking to you and you know it.

  Richard Siken

  Running, Distance, Here I Am

  4 Copy quote

• Imagine that the world is made out of love. Now imagine that it isn’t. Imagine a story where everything goes wrong, where everyone has their back against the wall, where everyone is in pain and acting selfishly because if they don’t, they’ll die. Imagine a story, not of good against evil, but of need against need against need, where everyone is at cross-purposes and everyone is to blame.

  Richard Siken

  Wall, Pain, Evil

  6 Copy quote

• The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.

  Richard Siken

  Monsters, Alive, Body

  9 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

• ...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

• The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.

  Richard Siken

  Light, Mystery, Passing

  13 Copy quote

• Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.

  Richard Siken

  Love You

  6 Copy quote

• Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine. I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.

  Richard Siken

  Sorry, Boys, Blood

  4 Copy quote

• All night I streched my arms across him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone ''Please keep him safe. Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed to pieces.'' Makes a cathedral, him pressing against me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me like stars.

  Richard Siken

  Stars, Fall, Believe

  14 Copy quote

• We can do anything. It’s not because our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making those long noodles you love so much.

  Richard Siken

  Struggle, Heart, Long

  45 Copy quote

• The narrator blames the birds. And you want to blame the birds as well. I blamed the birds for a long time. But in this story everyone is hungry, even the birds. And at this point in the story so many things have gone wrong, so many bad decisions made, that it’s a wonder anyone would want to continue reading.

  Richard Siken

  Reading, Long, Bird

  4 Copy quote

• Vanity, in a fairy tale, will make you evil. Vanity in the real world will drive you nuts. Vanity makes you say things like “I deserved a better life than this.

  Richard Siken

  Real, Vanity, Nuts

  12 Copy quote

• I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.

  Richard Siken

  Bleeding, Conversation

  14 Copy quote

• Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again.

  Richard Siken

  Dream, Lakes, Clothes

  4 Copy quote

• This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish.

  Richard Siken

  Wish, Half, Splits

  9 Copy quote

• how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple to slice into pieces. Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means we're inconsolable. 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

  Mean, Apples, Light

  10 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

• Wearing your clothes or standing in the shower for over an hour, pretending that this skin is your skin, these hands your hands, these shins, these soapy flanks

  Richard Siken

  Hands, Clothes, Skins

  4 Copy quote

• We laugh & it pits the world against us.

  Richard Siken

  Laughing, Pits, World

  4 Copy quote

• For a while I thought I was the dragon. I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was the princess, cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle, young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with confidence but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess, while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death. Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero. You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!

  Richard Siken

  Beautiful, Hero, Princess

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

  8 Copy quote

• I’ve been rereading your story. I think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterioso under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.

  Richard Siken

  Dream, Thinking, Long

  12 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

• If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.

  Richard Siken

  Way, If You Love Me, You Don't Love Me

  34 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

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