Quotes from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I did not know him, I knew my idea
of him.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I did not deceive him, he did not deceive me,
I did not leave him, he did not leave me,
I freed him, he freed me.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“it is
forbidden to love where we are not loved”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“Some people think I should
be over my ex by now — maybe
I thought I might have been over him more
by now. Maybe I’m half over who he
was, but not who I thought he was, and not
over the wound, sudden deathblow
as if out of nowhere, though it came from the core
of our life together.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“each hour is a room of shame, and I am
swimming, swimming, holding my head up,
smiling, joking, ashamed, ashamed,
like being naked with the clothed, or being
a child, having to try to behave
while hating the terms of your life.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“If I could
choose, a place to die,”
it would never have been in your arms, old darling”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“He fell in love with her because I
didn't suit him anymore -
nor him, me, though I could not see it, but he
saw it for me.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“And you couldn’t say,
could you, that the touch you had from me
was other than the touch of one
who could love for life—whether we were suited
or not—for life, like a sentence. And now that I
consider, the touch that I had from you
became not the touch of the long view, but like the
tolerant willingness of one
who is passing through.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“as if languagelessness was a step up, in evolution, from the chatter of consciousness.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“There Was an Old Woman Called Nothing-at-All,
Who Lived in a Dwelling Exceedingly Small;
A Man Stretched His Mouth to the Utmost Extent,
And Down at One Gulp House and Old Woman Went.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“let’s part
equals, as we were in every bed, pure
equals of the earth”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I've said that he and I had been crazy
for each other. But maybe my ex and I were not
crazy for each other. Maybe we
were sane for each other, as if our desire
was almost not even personal -
it was personal, but that hardly mattered, since there
seemed to be no other woman
or man in the world.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I want to relearn the intervals, to
journey with a man among the thirds and fifths,
augumented, diminshed, with a light touch,
sforzando, rallentando, agitato, the usual
adores and dotes - and of course what I reaaly
want is some low notes.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

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“I sucked on a blade of grass and watched the millwheel turn. I was lying on my stomach on the stream's opposite bank, my head propped in my hands. There was a tiny rainbow in the mist above the froth and boil at the foot of the waterfall, and an occasional droplet found its way to me. The steady splashing and the sound of the wheel drowned out all other noises in the wood. The mill was deserted today, and I contemplated it because I had not seen its like in ages. Watching the wheel and listening to the water were more than just relaxing. It was somewhat hypnotic. …
My head nodding with each creak of the wheel, I forced everything else from my mind and set about remembering the necessary texture of the sand, its coloration, the temperature, the winds, the touch of salt in the air, the clouds...
I slept then and I dreamed, but not of the place that I sought.
I regarded a big roulette wheel, and we were all of us on it-my brothers, my sisters, myself, and others whom I knew or had known-rising and falling, each with his allotted section. We were all shouting for it to stop for us and wailing as we passed the top and headed down once more. The wheel had begun to slow and I was on the rise. A fair-haired youth hung upside down before me, shouting pleas and warnings that were drowned in the cacophony of voices. His face darkened, writhed, became a horrible thing to behold, and I slashed at the cord that bound his ankle and he fell from sight. The wheel slowed even more as I neared the top, and I saw Lorraine then. She was gesturing, beckoning frantically, and calling my name. I leaned toward her, seeing her clearly, wanting her, wanting to help her. But as the wheel continued its turning she passed from my sight. “Corwin!”
I tried to ignore her cry, for I was almost to the top. It came again, but I tensed myself and prepared to spring upward. If it did not stop for me, I was going to try gimmicking the damned thing, even though falling off would mean my total ruin. I readied myself for the leap. Another click... “Corwin!”
It receded, returned, faded, and I was looking toward the water wheel again with my name echoing in my ears and mingling, merging, fading into the sound of the stream.
…
It plunged for over a thousand feet: a mighty cataract that smote the gray river like an anvil. The currents were rapid and strong, bearing bubbles and flecks of foam a great distance before they finally dissolved. Across from us, perhaps half a mile distant, partly screened by rainbow and mist, like an island slapped by a Titan, a gigantic wheel slowly rotated, ponderous and gleaming. High overhead, enormous birds rode like drifting crucifixes the currents of the air.
We stood there for a fairly long while. Conversation was impossible, which was just as well. After a time, when she turned from it to look at me, narrow-eyed, speculative, I nodded and gestured with my eyes toward the wood. Turning then, we made our way back in the direction from which we had come.
Our return was the same process in reverse, and I managed it with greater ease. When conversation became possible once more, Dara still kept her silence, apparently realizing by then that I was a part of the process of change going on around us.
It was not until we stood beside our own stream once more, watching the small mill wheel in its turning, that she spoke.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from The Great Book of Amber

“I hear your insults and plan to silence them with my victory.”
― Claudia Gray, quote from Stargazer

“Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?”
― W.B. Yeats, quote from The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

“I'm sorry," Butch croaked. "Oh God, I'm so sorry..."
V put his arm out and curled it around the cop. Pulling the male close to his chest, he laid his head down on his buddy's.
"It's okay," He said roughly. "It's all right. It's okay...You did the right thing...”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Unleashed

“But do I have “low intelligence”?”
― Jeff Kinney, quote from Diary of a Wimpy Kid

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