Kelli Russell Agodon > Quotes

“If you think you are the mermaid, think again.
You are the ocean holding the mermaid afloat,
trying to change the world one dolphin at a time.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“Sometimes darkness
is the beauty I am made of—”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“Maybe I’m still the mermaid.
Maybe the ocean is your hand.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“I don’t believe we should carry backup
plans in life’s suitcase—

they’re too easy to unpack
like living a life in yoga pants,
so comfortable our hips spread
into new timezones...”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“...look up and see the madness
organized in the stars.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“Maybe if I could slip into Sylvia's mind, sort out the spices in her rack, alphabetize them and dust them off. Maybe then I'd understand how it's the little things that pull you under.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon

“Yes, it hurts to fall—
ache, tenderness
—but each scar is a sign your system is working.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“the moon is just another kind of clock”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“In the beauty of whitecaps, I sometimes
see sadness, sometimes how lucky we are
to watch the sunrise one more time.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides

“Know there's beauty in the words you leave out”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“No one expects perfection, except when they do, which is always.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides

“We must live with our hearts
in our hands - like Mary.

We must hold the blood-
red heart and no be disappointed
when others look away.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“Like the kite that caught up to the sky,
painted with clouds, I lost track of it,
but it was connected

by string, something I was holding,
something I could always
bring back.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“To suffer together is to suffer
with beauty,”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“Time is a long sunrise where we wait for our haloes.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides

“She pours sugar on her life
and drinks the artist’s marrow
in the bone of her glass and she lives.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“The first person you fall in love with
will be a deer.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides

“I escape disaster by writing a poem with a joke in it:
The past, present, and future walk into a bar—it was tense.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“Understand, it’s never been easy to live,
when we’re trying to escape ourselves.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“in the corner of the painting of success
the signature is blurred”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“When someone says the world is mostly water,
I say, And poets.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides

“I wonder if I might be lonelier
if I didn't have loneliness”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“For everyone who never smiled in school
photos, for all who’ve wandered city streets

not knowing the where they were
or feeling alone, I’ve packed kindness.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“A crowd of drunken lovers. Newspaper
hats, new couples falling from couches and love-
seats—the pleasure remembered,
never the regret.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“To suffer together is to suffer
with beauty...”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“maybe life is a cobweb,
not an organizational chart.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides

“and everyone wants to read the poem
we’re afraid to write.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“I can’t relate to your razzle-dazzle, your wish
for voluptuous when my symphony is spanx.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“As I go under, I wonder if there’s a reason for art?”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

“America breaks my heart
some days and some days it breaks itself into two.”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides