“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, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
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.
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, quote from Crush
“The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren’t stitched up quite right, the place they could almost slip right into through if the skin wasn’t trying to keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side of the theater where the curtain keeps rising. I crawled out the window and ran into the woods. I had to make up all the words myself. The way they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made this place for you. A place for to love me. If this isn’t a kingdom then I don’t know what is.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“The blond boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwater because he is trying to kill you, and you deserve it, you do, and you know this, and you are ready to die in this swimming pool because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means your life is over anyway. You’re in eighth grade. You know these things. You know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to do long division, and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn't do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn't matter anymore.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. 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, quote from Crush
“You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not
harmless. You are not
breathing.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“Moonlight making crosses
on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“We still groped for each other on the backstairs or in parked cars
as the road around us
grew glossy with ice and our breath softened the view through the glass
already laced with frost,
but more frequently I was finding myself sleepless, and he was running out of
lullabies.
But damn if there isn’t anything sexier
than a slender boy with a handgun,
a fast car, a bottle of pills.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“Oh, the things we invent when we are scared
and want to be rescued.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“We pull our boots on with both hands
but we can't punch ourselves awake and all I can do
is stand on the curb and say 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, quote from Crush
“The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“with this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because
it’s all I have,
because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this
bullet inside me
‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“And the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
“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, quote from Crush
“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.”
― Richard Siken, quote from Crush
Richard Siken
Born place: New York City, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“The fact is that being seductive is an addiction that can never be satisfied.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims
“It says, ‘I am not alone—the truth is I befriended my loneliness.”
― Jasinda Wilder, quote from Falling into Us
“I've never been to the ocean, never heard the waves lick the sand in that quiet shushing you read about in books. I've never been to the zoo, smelled the elephant piss, and heard the cries of the monkeys. I've never had frozen yogurt from one of those places where you pull on the handle and fill your own cup with whatever you like. I've never eaten dinner at a restaurant with napkins that you set on your lap and silverware that isn't plastic. I've never painted my nails like the other girls at school, in bright neons and decadent reds. I've never been more than ten miles from home. Ten miles. It's like I live in the forever ago, not where buses rumble and trains have racks. I've never had a birthday cake, though I've wanted one very much. I've never owned a bra that is new, and had to cut the tags off with the scissors from the kitchen drawer. I've never been loved in a way that makes me feel as if I was supposed to be born, if only to feel loved. I've never, I've never, I've never. And it's my own fault. The things that we never do because someone makes us fearful of them, or makes us believe we don't deserve them. I want to do all my nevers-- alone or with someone who matters. I don't care. I just want to live.”
― Tarryn Fisher, quote from Marrow
“A lioness. She mates with her lion and he thinks the moment is about him when it is really about her, her children, her posterity. Her tricki s to make him think that he is king of the bush, but what he does a king matter? Really, she is king and queen and everything in between.”
― Yaa Gyasi, quote from Homegoing
“The world is hollow. It's a lot to take in. Like cracking an egg and finding nothing inside. Or a full grown elephant.”
― Geraldine McCaughrean, quote from The White Darkness
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The Bones of YouBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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