Richard Siken Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. 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. Crush

2. Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, I am falling to the floor crying, but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.

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

4. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that 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 didn’t even have a name for.

5. A man walks into a bar and says: Take my wife–please. So you do. You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her and she leaves you and you’re desolate.You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. And you can hear the man in the apartment above you taking off his shoes.You hear the first boot hit the floor and you’re looking up, 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 arein the bowels of the thing: your world doesn’t make sense. And then the second boot falls. And then a third, a fourth, a fifth. A man walks into a bar and says: Take my wife–please. But you take him instead.You take him home, and you make him a cheese sandwich, and you try to get his shoes off, but he kicks you and he keeps kicking you. You swallow a bottle of sleeping pills but they don’t work. Boots continue to fall to the floor in the apartment above you.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.A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says: Make it a double. A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says: Walk a mile in my shoes.A man walks into a convenience store, still you, saying: I only wanted something simple, something generic… But the clerk tells you to buy something or get out.A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he’s still leftwith the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he’s still left with his hands.

6. He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chestwhere a heart would fit perfectlyand he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place –well then, game over.

7. Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed. Crush

8. I know history. There are many names in historybut none of them are ours. Crush

9. I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars. Crush

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

11. Oh, the things we invent when we are scaredand want to be rescued. Crush

12. Someone once told me that explaining is an admission of failure.I'm sure you remember, I was on the phone with you, sweetheart. Crush

13. 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. Crush

14. We pull our boots on with both handsbut we can't punch ourselves awake and all I can do is stand on the curb and say Sorryabout 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. Crush

15. You a fever I am learning to live with Crush

16. 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. Crush