Sharks in the Rivers Quotes

“… dearest, can you
tell, I am trying
to love you less.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“Don't think about Laika in orbit.
Don't think about cringe and catastrophe.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I've come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb.

and I'm running the city water now
in a sink safe from harm, and across
the surface of most states there's
a phone ringing and a somebody's lost a
somebody, and a somebody's come
home, and I'm unmoved in the kitchen
pulling wings out of my teeth, praying
for loads more wishes and a body
out there waiting for this somebody
in the kitchen waiting to be done stung.

You mis everyone. Even the people you read about today
you didn't know, their faces on the brain as if on paper.

Maybe you don't even say it for yourself,
maybe you move your mouth like everyone
moves their mouth. Maybe your mouth is the same
mouth as everyone's, all trying to say the same thing.

You come home on the train and you have
bought gifts and tried to be decent.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“I'm chock-full of bad ideas today,
my foul mouth worthy of a good kick.

Let's storm the hospital!
Let's burn the bedsheets!

I've been walking for a long time,
and it hasn't made me smarter or faster,
but I bet I can still beat you.

Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow,
but this stubborn monster-girl, gone all wrong
with the river's sledge, is not
giving in to your one-way-ness.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“He just needed someone subversive to bend in
real close and say,

You can rustle all you want,
you can reinvent the shout,
but you got your rat-self in there,
now, get your cunning rat-self out.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“I say to a stranger, I am harmless.

But the word doesn’t seem right. I have been harmed,
but I do not wish to do harm, but I could do harm.
(I am not without desire.)”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“Standing in my ridiculous human clothes,
I argued with the rat. I asked him,

Are you rabid?
Are you crazy?
Are you responsible for the plague?

He didn't answer; he threw himself again.

Are you mean?
Did you hurt your children?
Did you hurt anyone?

I want to tell you that I let that rat out,

that kindness overwhelmed the tough pout of people-cleanliness.
I want to tell you I put him in a shoe box
and brought him to the country, fed him corn and taught him to read.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“To the Busted Among Us

But everyone is busted a little.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“Santiago, I am my own weather now.
Santiago, I am my own river.
Santiago, I am a better bird for flying.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“If I moved to Santa Cruz, I could ride the roller coaster
all the time. And learn to surf. Except for the sharks.

I admit I am hopeless.

Sharks are fish, just fish with a rubbery cartilage
and a mind for troublemaking--stirring things up.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“And here we are, diligent birds,
trying to make a small life out of paper and string.

Seed-hoarder, stream-nester,
warm-blooded, beak-lover, bird-speaker--
go to the water, bird,
love the blue world, bird,
money means nothing, bird,
clothes mean nothing, bird,
keep going into the world, bird,
startle the sad spring air with the whirring of your wings.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“Don't worry, I don't believe that hummingbirds are in love with me,
no gods are ever in love with us.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“Turned out there was nothing beyond the blue sky.
Which made the sky bluer and more holy than it had been before.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“I'm not sorry that I don't believe in god that way.
(I'm sorry about a lot of things, but not that.)”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“After she had been in the hospital for eight days,
my stepmom and I sat by the tall grass under the butterfly tree.

We had broken her out successfully from tubes and torment.
I was drinking gin at noon.

Going to the hospital is like going to the airport: Everyone does it.
It's best to make yourself flint and stir up the scary air.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“What we define as human tenderness troubles
each of us differently.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“Perhaps that is how all love comes,
unexpected and on a blast of transmogrified air.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“You sit on the balcony,
which is really a fire escape, but you call it
the balcony to make it sound better.
You wear the slip your grandmother gave you

fifteen years ago, the weather is nice, California nice.

You sing a little, call your family, you think, things aren’t so bad.

You say you love the world, so love the world.

Maybe you don’t even say it for yourself,
Maybe you move your mouth like everyone
moves their mouth. Maybe your mouth is the same
mouth as everyone’s, all trying to say the same thing.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“The television says tomorrow night they will
shed some light on hell.

How far do we need to search for some bad thing?
Hell is not beneath us, not a bargaining chip with your children.

You come home on the train and you have
bought gifts and tried to be decent.

This is how your life will go, you know that. Day after day.

Awful acceptance: the soft life of your footprints.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“This fevered mess of world
is well-done. Lean in and nuzzle
its exceptional need to be yours.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“I cannot stop looking at the bird out the window.

We've named him Stanley. He's half-angry,
half-slow, half-bird. One-and-a-half figurine.

I want him to live somewhere else, but it's not my decision.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“A friend says the best way to love the world is to think of leaving.

We're all in trouble, you know?”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“All the beautiful girls in the office are laughing and I laugh
along. And all of us good people, honest and clean,

and what puts the mean in some of us?”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“The path is forgotten, but we are still walking:
we whirl out our limbs to the defeated world,
this city's tiny blue welt of sky”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“I told a friend last night that I thought it would be a plane crash,

one blazing bird tumbling me to the next hand.

He says--his sight half-gone,
another silvery operation after another--
Not me, I go pecked to death
by a hummingbird slowly, inconceivably torn apart.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“How does one lay down her
rigid plans for infinity?”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“I heard you could take the sand from a red anthill,
suck on the grains and put them back wet.
The ants would carry your worries away.

Everyday I put more sand in my mouth,
and everyday I woke up with a buzzard outside my window.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“I'm pointing out some
stone I love and I know I sound ridiculous,
my voice like too-loud chimes in a windstorm.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“This Practice

They say the first thing that goes
is short-term memory. We forget
our keys, we forget the address,
we forget the name of the president.
I like to think it’s just a matter of practice—
we’ve had more time to practice the memory
of our brother's face, our favorite light,
the creek that runs down the center of town.
I want to practice. Like the Russian soldier
who had to make up a word to say how
hard he would fight, said he would fight
fiercefully, that’s how I will remember you,
that’s how I will practice—fiercefully.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers

“Let the flood come, the rowdy water
beasts are knocking now and now.”
― Ada Limon, Sharks in the Rivers