Top 93 Richard Siken Quotes

#1. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #60196
#2. From the landscape: a sense of scale. From the dead: a sense of scale.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #63908
#3. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #142137
#4. Oh, the body - its hungers, needs, and limitations. You look at somebody and you realize that they're in there, inside there, somewhere, and how will you ever reach them, understand them?

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #155819
#5. Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently
we have had our difficulties and there are many things
I want to ask you.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #165722
#6. Oh we're a mess, poor humans, poor flesh - hybrids of angels and animals, dolls with diamonds stuffed inside them. We've been to the moon and we're still fighting over Jerusalem.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #189338
#7. Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #201410
#8. Let's admit, without apology, what we do to each other.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #204746
#9. you're all I ever wanted

and worth dying for too

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #258852
#10. What can you know about a person? They shift in the light. You can't light up all sides at once.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #266469
#11. The hunter sinks his arrows into the trees and then paints the targets around them. The trees imagine they are deer. The deer imagine they are safe. The arrows: they have no imagination.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #271654
#12. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #276271
#13. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #279575
#14. What is a ghost?
Something dead
that seems to be alive.
Something dead
that doesn't know it's dead.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #324492
#15. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #325459
#16. Tell me, the poet says, the lie I need to feel safe, and tell me in your own voice, so I believe you. One more tale to stay alive.

Louise Gluck

Richard Siken Quotes #331210
#17. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #381465
#18. You are here. You are here. You're still right here.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #428851
#19. If the dead are watching, I want them to see us writing, dancing, singing, painting. I want them to see that we still reach out to each other.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #434338
#20. There's a dream in the
space between the hammer and the nail: the dream of
about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream, but the nail will
take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #457375
#21. O how he loves you, darling boy. Oh how, like always, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him, chest to chest or chest to back, the covers drawn around you in an act of faith against the night.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #462921
#22. Verse. Chorus. Verse.
I'm sorry. We know how it works. The world is no longer mysterious.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #469249
#23. Anything past the horizon is invisible, it can only be imagined. You want to see the future but you only see the sky.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #471326
#24. Someone once told me that explaining is an admission of failure.
I'm sure you remember, I was on the phone with you, sweetheart.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #473450
#25. I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don't want them, so I take them back and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #492269
#26. If you love me, Henry, you don't love me in a way I understand.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #541398
#27. God says, Which one of you fuckers can get to me first?

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #559656
#28. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #570081
#29. I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #582044
#30. Okay, so I'm the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #612934
#31. From a literary standpoint, I've been loving Raymond Carver's short stories, William Carlos Williams' poems, Richard Siken's 'Crush', John Fante, and Jim Harrison's book of ghazals. I love film and photography too, so many of my songs are very image rich from those influences.

Greta Salpeter

Richard Siken Quotes #616949
#32. Panic is a synonym for being; in its delays, in its swerving and rushing syntax, its frantic lists and questions, it fends off time and loss. Its opposite is oblivion: not the tranquil oblivion of sleep but the threatening oblivions of sex and death.

Louise Gluck

Richard Siken Quotes #624191
#33. Siken occasionally locates a poem in loss as enacted, not implicit, event. These are among his most beautiful poems, their capitulations heartbreaking in the context of prolonged animal struggle against acknowledgement.

Louise Gluck

Richard Siken Quotes #639160
#34. Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #650770
#35. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #703576
#36. You play along, because you want to die for love, you always have.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #711725
#37. You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening
at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #766604
#38. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #777402
#39. And this is the map of my heart, the landscape
after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is
a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me
tight, it's getting cold.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #820349
#40. but more frequently I was finding myself sleepless and he was running out of lullabies

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #838330
#41. I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #843034
#42. The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #847665
#43. This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #848818
#44. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #893413
#45. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #902085
#46. Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #933996
#47. We are at the crossroads, my little outlaw,
and this is the map of my heart, the landscape
after cruelty

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #972343
#48. We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor ...
When I say this, it should mean laughter,
not poison.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1016856
#49. I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1025082
#50. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1073813
#51. The radio aches a little tune that tells the story of what the night is thinking. it's thinking of love.
it's thinking of stabbing us to death and leaving our bodies in a dumpster.
that's a nice touch, stains in the night, whiskey and kisses for everyone.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1083244
#52. Did he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in?

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1112187
#53. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1117311
#54. Cut me open and the light streams out.
Stitch me up and the light keeps streaming out between the stitches

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1137995
#55. When you have nothing to say,
set something on fire.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1173403
#56. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1177311
#57. You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that.
I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that.
You weren't supposed to.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1184769
#58. It's not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere, it's more like a song on a policeman's radio, 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.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1203953
#59. How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder?

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1206026
#60. There is an empty space next to you in the backseat of the station wagon. Make it the shape of everything you need. Now say hello.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1216766
#61. I'm battling monsters, I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings/ and you say I'll give you anything but you never come through.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1235047
#62. You were drinking sangria and I was throwing oranges at you,
but it didn't matter.
I said my arms are very long and your head's on fire.
I said kiss me here and here and here
and you did.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1266488
#63. We're shooting the scene where I swallow your heart and you make me
spit it up again. I swallow your heart and it crawls
right out of my mouth.
You swallow my heart and flee, but I want it back now, baby. I want it back.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1274136
#64. You'd break your heart to make it bigger, so why not crack your skull when the mind swells.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1314115
#65. I've been in your body, baby, and it was paradise.
I've been in your body and it was a carnival ride.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1349858
#66. Someone is digging your grave right now.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1350078
#67. I wanted to hurt you / but the victory is that I could not stomach it.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1350287
#68. Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1373430
#69. We laugh & it pits the world against us.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1394218
#70. Dear Forgiveness,I saved a plate for you.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1408793
#71. He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1443724
#72. Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1461501
#73. We live in a period of great polarities: in art, in public policy, in morality. In poetry, art seems, at one extreme, rhymed good manners, and at the other, chaos.

Louise Gluck

Richard Siken Quotes #1469997
#74. I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1499153
#75. You just wanted to prove there was one safe place, just one safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1519553
#76. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1522893
#77. The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1524881
#78. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1526092
#79. We laugh & it pits the world against us.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1532268
#80. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1566021
#81. The boy's no good. The boy is just no good. / but he takes you in his arms and pushes your flesh around to see if you could ever be ugly to him.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1573213
#82. Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1635748
#83. I am singing now while Rome
burns.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1642831
#84. Oh, the things we invent when we are scared
and want to be rescued.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1665630
#85. Everyone needs a place. It shouldn't be inside of someone else.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1668531
#86. Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1675808
#87. Here I am
leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome
burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,
my silent night, just mash your lips against me.
We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1689122
#88. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1708253
#89. Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere.

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1730301
#90. You a fever I am learning to live with

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1754283
#91. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here's the desire to put it inside us, and then the question behind every question: What happens next?

Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes #1811774
#92. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1826855
#93. 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

Richard Siken Quotes #1865944

Famous Authors

Popular Topics

Scroll to Top