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" 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. "

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" 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

Successful

Time

Done

" Just because someone tells you they love you, it doesn't mean they actually do. "

" I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student - but I knew I was never going to be picked up. "

Rupi Kaur

Used

Submit

" When things get better, there's a swing to the pendulum where things get worse for others. "

" My favourite character in fiction was probably either James from 'James and the Giant Peach' or Ender from 'Ender's Game.' They were just ordinary people who were living under various amounts of struggle, and just to follow their journeys and see them break out of that and live extraordinary lives - I think that gave me a lot of hope as a kid. "

" The way a small child might dream of visiting Disneyland, I dreamed of writing books. Never did I think my poems would become that. "

" Truth, honesty, empowerment - it's what I want for myself and my readers. "

" 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. "

" The pain that all people experience in life and the light that helps them champion through it all - it's their lives and their stories and their love and will to keep living that moves me to write. "

Rupi Kaur

Love

Pain

" Why are we so terrified of a natural process that allows for life to be brought into this world? Why do we scramble to hide our tampons when we pull them out of our purses? "

" How do you redefine love when your idea of love is something that's so violent? When your idea of passion is anger, how do you fix that? "

" 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. "

" I don't fit into the age, race, or class of a bestselling poet. "

" 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

Think

Social Media

" 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. "

" Being that my parents and I were immigrants to Canada, I didn't have the most lavish life growing up. "

" With immigrant parents, they've had to sacrifice so much to survive, and they're trying to preserve the culture they lost, so there are just so many boundaries. "

" The topics just kind of come to me. If they are relevant, it's because they're happening in the world around me, and it's affecting me. Poetry is my way of dealing with it. "

" I write from the various experiences I live. Not every poem comes from my personal experience, though. It could be something that a friend lived, or a person from my community here, or a woman anywhere around the world. "

" 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. "

" The trauma of South Asian people escapes the confines of our own times. We're not just healing from what's been inflicted onto us as children... it is generations of pain embedded into our souls. "

" My writing is a product of how I would interact with things that have happened to me or things that have not happened to me but have happened to somebody else. "

Rupi Kaur

Somebody

Things

" My dad studies and practices homeopathy and Ayurveda medicine. He's a strong believer in both honey and milk as forms of healing. Honey is the one food that does not die. It does not expire. Growing up, he'd always be mixing up almonds or turmeric or gram flower with milk to cure a cough or a cold. "

" Social media has been such a big platform for my success. But it can also be a toxic place. "

" 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. "

" Really, at the end of the day, the only thing you can control is yourself; the only person you can truly educate is yourself. You have to redefine what beauty is to you so you can't be affected by what people are saying. "

" There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse, loss, love, and healing through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant woman. "

" I think I finally overcame my self-esteem and confidence issues at around 20. "

" 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

Journey

Parents

" My gut is so strong. I feel like I have a lot of books in me, and they're going to come out because I said so. It's going to happen. "