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" 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. "

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" When I was little, my dad told me about Anandpur Sahib and the court of Guru Gobind Singh. That we came from a tradition of poets, warriors and artists who created when it was illegal to create... we're groomed to be reckless in the defense of what we feel is right. "

Rupi Kaur

Feel

Create

" We are not outraged by blood. We see blood all the time. Blood is pervasive in movies, television, and video games. Yet, we are outraged by the fact that one openly discusses bleeding from an area that we try to claim ownership over. "

" Before I begin to write, I listen to music that inspires me. I listen to folk Punjabi music, sufi music. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

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

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

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

" I did not start out thinking I'm going to become a feminist poet. It was a tag I was given. "

" My heart is beating, and I'm breathing, and nothing anybody has ever done has changed that. "

" It was tough to cope with the pressure of having to talk about menstruation, but now with 'Newsweek' splashing it as the cover story, I thing the point I wished to make has found its mark. "

" 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. "

" I love Roald Dahl, Sharon Olds, Nizar Qabbani, who is a poet, and Junot Diaz. "

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

" I think I only started to speak to people in grade four. "

" I realize I'm blessed to have the luxury of being a full-time writer. Not many people have that. "

" 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. "

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

" For me, the power of the poetry in 'Milk and Honey' is the feeling you get after finished reading the poem. It's the emotion you feel once you've read the last word, and that is only possible when the diction is easy, and you don't get stuck on every other word, you don't know what the word means. "

Rupi Kaur

Honey

Know

" I was always writing for myself. I wrote what I needed to write and hear - that's what makes it powerful. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" In high school, I started saving up to get a nose job, which is so ridiculous. I had this job at Tim Hortons, and I was trying to save up $10,000 for a nose job. "

" Why are brown women bullying brown women for body hair? Why are brown women bullying brown women for the same traits we all have? "

" 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 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

Writing

" 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. "