Rupi Kaur Quotes:
A lot of Indian fathers don’t know how to show affection. My parents really do love me, even though my dad has never been able to say those words to me.
Rupi Kaur
Being that my parents and I were immigrants to Canada, I didn’t have the most lavish life growing up.
Rupi Kaur
Feeling ‘ugly’ or ‘unattractive’ seeps into your life like poison, and it affects everything. Feeling worthless does the same. We internalise these limitations, and it takes an internal revolution to get rid of them.
Rupi Kaur
For some of my young female readers, it will be the first time they will have seen a Punjabi author be successful in the West. Because I’m dealing with topics that aren’t always easily discussed, I know they will look up to me, because I would have done the same. So I just want to make sure I do right by them, wherever this takes me.
Rupi Kaur
Growing up, I naturally embraced who I was, but I was always battling with myself. So I spent half my time being proud of being a woman and the other half completely hating it.
Rupi Kaur
I can sit down with my sisters, and they can talk about my body in a certain way, and I will laugh about it with them. That’s such a comfortable and loving relationship. But if a stranger I meet in a party makes the same comment, depending on their tone, that’s not okay.
Rupi Kaur
I don’t fit into the age, race, or class of a bestselling poet.
Rupi Kaur
I feel social media can be very distracting, unhealthy, and harmful to one’s self-confidence. I don’t even log on to it on my phone except when I post something on Instagram.
Rupi Kaur
I felt voiceless for so long, I wasn’t ever able to say what I felt out loud. I didn’t know how to say it. Posting online presented itself as a comfortable medium. I could say what I wanted to say in a way I still felt comfortable. Whenever, however I wanted to.
Rupi Kaur
I grew up thinking I was going to change the world, but not because I was treated like a special snowflake. It’s a silly label. People are starving. We need to feed them. That’s the end of the conversation.
Rupi Kaur
I have always been a fan of Salvador Dali, but Amrita Sher-Gil, who was an Indian-Hungarian painter, is another favourite. She was painting Indian women, and, growing up here, I’d never seen anyone paint Indian women, so that was really incredible to see a painting of someone who looks like you. I think that has a lot of impact on you.
Rupi Kaur
I haven’t had the opportunity to study visual art, but it was always my first love when it came to artistic expression. I started drawing and experimenting with visual art when I was 5.
Rupi Kaur
I like B.C. because it’s so beautiful, but I think Toronto’s the greatest place because every corner of the world is here.
Rupi Kaur
I love Roald Dahl, Sharon Olds, Nizar Qabbani, who is a poet, and Junot Diaz.
Rupi Kaur
I realize I’m blessed to have the luxury of being a full-time writer. Not many people have that.
Rupi Kaur
I sat with myself one day and asked, ‘Who is in those prestigious literary circles? Do they represent me? Do they appreciate the topics I write about and the style in which I write? Do those gatekeepers let a demographic like mine through the door?’ And the answer was no.
Rupi Kaur
I think I finally overcame my self-esteem and confidence issues at around 20.
Rupi Kaur
I think I only started to speak to people in grade four.
Rupi Kaur
I think social media is… really cool in the sense that I don’t think that a writer like me would’ve found a readership if maybe Instagram wasn’t there.
Rupi Kaur
I want to leave behind a literary legacy.
Rupi Kaur
I was always writing for myself. I wrote what I needed to write and hear – that’s what makes it powerful.
Rupi Kaur
I wasn’t entitled to dream so big. The idea of me being a writer wasn’t even possible in my mind. Even when I began to write and first published, I couldn’t call myself a writer.
Rupi Kaur
I wasn’t trying to write a book; it wasn’t even in my vision. I was posting stuff online just because it made me feel relieved – as a way of getting things off my chest.
Rupi Kaur
I won the speech competition in class, and I always say this was my first ‘spoken word performance.’ It was the first time I got on stage and recited something. I fell in love with the stage at the age of 12.
Rupi Kaur
I would give anything to sing like Beyonce or Adele. I’ve said many times to my friends that if I could sing like them, I would give up poetry and writing.
Rupi Kaur
If I body-shame a woman, it is more a reflection of me being critical of my body, me not being able to keep up to certain standards I have, and so making sure that the women around me feel the same way.
Rupi Kaur
I’m a brown girl from a Punjabi pind raised in Toronto. I don’t expect literary critics and purists to understand the nuances of my experiences, and the experiences of the people around me… And my tradition holds that there is a magic in the written word. So how I write, what I write of, and why I write all comes naturally.
Rupi Kaur
I’ve been thinking a lot about the journey of my parents – just seeing the sacrifices they’ve made to allow me to do what I do. How much of a difference their sacrifices have made through the generations.
Rupi Kaur
Just because someone tells you they love you, it doesn’t mean they actually do.
Rupi Kaur
‘Milk and Honey’ was written with me being honest to myself, kind of pulling at the things that I hear the most and saying that out loud, and you know, that thing that we hear the most is most universal, and so that rings true with all folks. The language used in the poetry is extremely, extremely accessible.
Rupi Kaur