Richard Siken: Trending quotes (page 2)

“We laugh & it pits the world against us.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“And the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”

“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”

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

“How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder?”

“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.”

“You wanted to think of yourself as someone who did these kinds of things.
                 You wanted to be in love
                             and he happened to get in the way.”

“I am singing now while Rome
burns.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”