War of the Foxes Quotes

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“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, War of the Foxes

“I wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way. I gave shape to my fears and made excuses. I varied my velocities, watched myselves sleep. Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it-- living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor I would keep falling.
The enormity of my desire disgusts me.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary. I’d rather quit. I’d rather be sad. It’s too much work.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Because people die. The fear: that nothing survives. The greater fear: that something does.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard
to make it love.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“What can you know about a person? They shift
in the light. You can’t light up all sides at once. Add
a second light and you get a second darkness, it’s only
fair.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be alive. Something dead that doesn't know it's dead.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“It should be enough. To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn’t. It should be.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“The enormity of my desire disgusts me.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“You'd break your heart to make it bigger, so why not crack your skull when the mind swells.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Paint ghosts over everything, the sadness of everything. We made ourselves cold. We made ourselves snow. We smuggled ourselves into ourselves. Haunted by each other’s knowledge. To hide somewhere is not surrender, it is trickery. All day the snow falls down, all night the snow. I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story. We left footprints in the slush of ourselves, getting out of there.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Bird 1: This is the wrong story.
Bird 2: All stories are the wrong story when you are impatient.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“When you paint an evil thing, do you invoke it or take away its power?”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“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, War of the Foxes

“God says, Which one of you fuckers can get to me first?”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I put my sadness in a box. The box went soft and wet and weak at the bottom. I called it Thursday. Today is Sunday. The town is empty.

I stood in the road looking forward and back, to see if it would change something. After a while, I went back inside and tripped over the box.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Sometimes, at night, in bed, before I fall asleep, I think about a poem I might write, someday, about my heart, says the heart.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Something’s not
right about what I’m doing but I’m still doing it—
living in the worst parts, ruining myself.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“When you have nothing to say, set something on fire. A blurry landscape is useless.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I cut off my head and threw it in the sky. It turned into birds. I called it thinking.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“History is painted by the winners.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“You cannot get in the way of anyone's path to God. You can, but it does no good. Every spy knows this. Somesay God is where we put our sorrow. God says, Which one of you fuckers can get to me first?”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Can we love nature for what it really is: predatory? We do not walk through a passive landscape. The paint dries eventually. We collide with place, which is another name for God, and limp away with a permanent injury. Ask for a blessing? You can try, but we will not remain unscathed.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Land a man in a landscape and he'll try to conquer it. Make him handsome and you're a fascist, make him ugly and you're saying nothing new.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Let's admit, without apology, what we do to each other.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Let me tell you a story about war. A man says to another man, Can I tell you something? The other man says, No. A man says to another man, There is something I have to tell you. No, says the other man. No, you don’t.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“He knows that when you snap a mast it's time to get a set of oars or learn how to breathe underwater. Rely on one thing too long and when it disappears and you have nothing–well, that's just bad planning. It's embarrassing, to think it could never happen. It happens.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I kept my mind on the moon.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“But truth doesn't count / in law, only proof.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes