Sarah Kay Quotes

#1. Life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

Sarah Kay

#2. A sky still fits the ignition. There just isn't anything left to drive.

Sarah Kay

#3. Is there a word for the moment you win tug-of-war? When the weight gives, and all that extra rope comes hurtling towards you, how even though you've won, you still end up with muddy knees and burns on your hands? Is there a word for that? I wish there was.

Sarah Kay

#4. I often tell people to stop being afraid of writing bad poetry, or bad anything. I think that a lot of times, when people claim that they have writer's block, or that they get stuck, it's just because they're scared of writing bad things.

Sarah Kay

#5. When I hear other people's stories, I like to believe that they contribute to my 'Encyclopedia of Human Experience.' The stories I hear help me expand my definition of what love is, what pain feels like, what sacrifice means, what laughter can do.

Sarah Kay

#6. We both know how to hide our sharpest parts, I just don't always recognize my own weaponry.

Sarah Kay

#7. Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it.

Sarah Kay

#8. I do like celebrating women, I do like celebrating different lifestyles and choices and people and it makes me happy when others find my work empowering.

Sarah Kay

#9. Our day-to-day lives are pretty chaotic. So in terms of the writing part, you have to get pretty disciplined about finding quiet moments and making sure you're making time for the art side, on top of all the time-consuming business side.

Sarah Kay

#10. Poetry makes people nervous. Especially in schools.

Sarah Kay

#11. Not all poetry wants to be storytelling. And not all storytelling wants to be poetry. But great storytellers and great poets share something in common: They had something to say, and did.

Sarah Kay

#12. Fingers interlocked like a beautiful accordion of flesh or a zipper of prayer

Sarah Kay

#13. To me, having the courage to tell your own story goes hand in hand with having the curiosity and humility to listen to others' stories.

Sarah Kay

#14. I don't remember the first poem that I wrote because I've been creating poems since I was around 2 or 3. I don't have any memory of that but my mom has written evidence of it. I've always liked playing with words so when I was younger it had a lot more to do with rhyme and sounds.

Sarah Kay

#15. Some nights, I wake up knowing he is anxious. He is across the world in another woman's arms and the years have spread us like dandelion seeds, sanding down the edges of our jigsaw parts that used to only fit each other

Sarah Kay

#16. I use poetry to help me work through what I don't understand, but I show up to each new poem with a backpack full of everywhere else that I've been.

Sarah Kay

#17. I write poetry to figure things out. Any time I'm trying to wrap my head around something, poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me.

Sarah Kay

#18. No matter your wreckage. There will be someone to find you beautiful, despite the cruddy metal. Your ruin is not to be hidden behind paint and canvas. Let them see the cracks. Someone will come to sing into these empty spaces.

Sarah Kay

#19. My world was the size of a crayon box, and it took every colour to draw her

Sarah Kay

#20. Some people read palms to tell your future, but I read hands to tell your past. Each scar makes a story worth telling. Each callused palm, each cracked knuckle is a missed punch or years in a factory.

Sarah Kay

#21. Perusing colorful storylines on the backs of book jackets, I realized that none of them could possibly be as dramatic as my life to date. Then sadly, I also realized I could never find the ending of my story from the safety of an armchair.

Sarah Kay

#22. It does not matter how strong your gravity is, we were always meant to fly.

Sarah Kay

#23. There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry.

Sarah Kay

#24. Let the statues crumble. You have always been the place.

Sarah Kay

#25. I love hands like I love people. They are the maps and compasses with which we navigate our way through life, feeling our way over mountains passed and valleys crossed; they are our histories.

Sarah Kay

#26. Still now I send letters into space
Hoping that some mailman somewhere will track you down
And recognise you from the descriptions in my poems
That he will place the stack of them in your hands and tell you,
There is a girl who still writes you, she doesn't know how not to

Sarah Kay

#27. If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.

Sarah Kay

#28. The first spoken word poem I ever wrote was when I was 14 and I wrote it because I was accidentally signed up for a teen poetry slam. Because I loved poetry I said that I'd try it out.

Sarah Kay

#29. Sometimes the only way I know how to work through something is by writing a poem. And sometimes I get to the end of the poem and look back and go, 'Oh, that's what this is all about,' and sometimes I get to the end of the poem and haven't solved anything, but at least I have a new poem out of it.

Sarah Kay

#30. You can be an artist, work hard for your work and also share while trying to create community with other artists.

Sarah Kay

#31. Thinking about writing as an act of celebration is sometimes a helpful framework for me. It allows me to prioritize what I want to call attention to and what I want others to know about me. It makes me ask: What is worth celebrating?

Sarah Kay

#32. I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

Sarah Kay

#33. Part of what I try to do in schools is take poetry off of a pedestal and make it a little more accessible and approachable.

Sarah Kay

#34. I don't think it's about art being a career but it's about making sure that if art is something that you love, something that brings you joy, it's about you having a duty to find time in your life for that thing that brings you joy ... even if it can only be a small amount.

Sarah Kay

#35. Ever hear that expression, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"? That's what high school was like for me. Both of those - all the time.

Sarah Kay

#36. I love you
as much as the ocean
kisses the shore
no matter how many times
it is sent away.

Sarah Kay

#37. I have always been more comfortable with daredevil acts than with the everyday nuances of life. Let me jump out of a plane, speak in front of a roomful of strangers, even trek across Siberia.

Sarah Kay

#38. There are so many things I would tell you
if I thought that you would listen
and so many more you would tell me
if you believed I would understand

Sarah Kay

#39. We build model ships in bottles, whispering life into the toothpicks and wire; we make plans and blueprints for the one we hope is coming. And come they do. Fleets of vessels. Battleships and barges. They arrive on the horizon, flags to the sky.

Sarah Kay

#40. When words become a poem, it makes sense to me, but I don't know how to explain to someone why the words are the way they are. It's just the logic of the poem to me.

Sarah Kay

#41. I want [my daughter] to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind.

Sarah Kay

#42. Our model ships look perfect in their bottles, but we do not know if they are seaworthy. Sometimes the one that reaches your harbor has already been through the storm.

Sarah Kay

#43. Think it's so unfair when people think that you're not a "real artist" unless you're getting paid for it ... I personally know so many poets that work a 9 to 5 in a cubicle and come home and write poetry. Their poetry is just as powerful and moving as anything that I've ever written, if not more.

Sarah Kay

#44. When I hear what I have written out loud, the cliches hang in the air between us like bad breath

Sarah Kay

#45. I want to welcome folks to poetry, especially those who may have previously felt unwelcome; I want to celebrate everyone who is trying to make sense of this world through poetry the way I try to.

Sarah Kay

#46. Poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me. I like to poem my way through tricky questions and ideas. That's about the only consistent thread through my poem-creation process.

Sarah Kay

#47. Ever since I was little, I've loved making hand-made cards and presents and arts & crafts for people.

Sarah Kay

#48. There was no secret I did not tell him, there was no moment we did not share. We didn't grow up, we grew in; like ivy wrapping, molding each other into perfect yins and yangs

Sarah Kay

#49. It is December, and nobody asked if I was ready.

Sarah Kay

#50. I have always liked coming home and sharing what has happened that day with my loved ones. I like comparing notes. I know other people do, too. I think there is a human instinct to tell stories, no matter who you are or where you live.

Sarah Kay

#51. When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean after years of puddle jumping.

Sarah Kay

#52. I promise to tidy up before company arrives, wouldn't want my socks and daydreams all over the carpet

Sarah Kay

#53. My first performance poem was about how sometimes I was teased for being manly, or a tomboy or whatever. It was saying how just because I looked a certain way and displayed myself a certain way didn't mean that I wasn't also a feminine human ... a woman if you will.

Sarah Kay

#54. How strange, that when you are away, I reach for my cell phone's buzz as if it were your hand. Each shiver in my pocket, a way to find you.

Sarah Kay

#55. Spoken word poetry is the art of performance poetry. I tell people it involves creating poetry that doesn't just want to sit on paper, that something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person.

Sarah Kay

#56. I will love you with too many commas, but never any asterisks.

Sarah Kay

#57. Hands learn. More than minds do.

Sarah Kay

#58. In New York, when a tree dies, nobody mourns that it was cut down in its prime. Nobody counts the rings, notifies the loved ones. There are other trees. We can always squeeze in one more. Mind the tourists. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live there.

Sarah Kay

#59. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried.

Sarah Kay

#60. We were dandelion seeds released to the wind, she asked for no return. We are saplings now. With gentle hands.

Sarah Kay

#61. She makes tea by hand. Nettles, slippery elm, turmeric, cinnamon - my mother is a recipe for warm throats and belly laughs. Once she fell off a ladder when I was three. She says all she was worried about was my face as I watched her fall.

Sarah Kay

#62. There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.

Sarah Kay

#63. Women don't have to be defined by others. We have the power to define ourselves: by telling our own stories, in our own words, with our own voices.

Sarah Kay

#64. Spoken word teaches that if you have the ability to express yourself and the courage to present those stories and opinions, you could be rewarded with a room full of your peers or your community who will listen.

Sarah Kay

#65. Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night

Sarah Kay

#66. I write about love and family a lot, because I'm always trying to figure those things out. At different points in my life, just when I think I've finished writing about it, the dynamics shift, and then I have a whole new set of questions and worries and misunderstandings to wrestle with.

Sarah Kay

#67. My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.

Sarah Kay

#68. Her dress is the colour of marmalade, she chirps songs that have no words

Sarah Kay

#69. Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you've done something wrong but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

Sarah Kay

#70. Nothing is as universal as some good scatalogical humor. Even if it means having to be a little silly or cheeky, I think it is worth it.

Sarah Kay

#71. You're just smelling for smoke
so you can follow the trail
back to a burning house,
so you can find the boy
who lost everything in the fire
to see if you can save him.
Or else
find the boy
who lit the fire
in the first place,
to see if you
can change him.

Sarah Kay

#72. It is equally important to listen as it is to speak.

Sarah Kay

#73. And I know we live in different worlds, and we're always really busy, but in my dreams you spin around me so fast, I always wake up dizzy.

So maybe one day you'll grow tired of the road and roll on back to me.

Sarah Kay

#74. It is hard to stop loving the ocean. Even after it has left you gasping, salty.

Sarah Kay

#75. Hands learn more than minds do, hands learn how to hold other hands ...

Sarah Kay

#76. You are a woman. Skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat. You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies, not excuses.

Sarah Kay

#77. Oh, Brother. No matter your wreckage. There will be someone to find you beautiful, despite the cruddy metal. Your ruin is not to be hidden behind paint and canvas. Let them see the cracks.

Sarah Kay

#78. I write poems to figure things out

Sarah Kay

#79. If loving you means getting dirty, bring on the grime.

Sarah Kay

#80. Most days it feels as if the world is whirling around me and I am standing still. In slow motion, I watch the colors blur; people and faces all become a massive wash.

Sarah Kay

#81. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.

Sarah Kay

#82. I am watching parts of me evaporate like sidewalk water. This wet grey, this nighttime dew, gone before morning.

Sarah Kay

#83. One of my highest priorities as an educator is to be as inclusive as possible.

Sarah Kay

#84. It's really hard for me to remember all of the places that I've been but I can remember all of the delicious meals that I've ever eaten. I love traveling by way or stomach ... and finding quiet time.

Sarah Kay

#85. You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.

Sarah Kay

#86. Such a little thing really, a kiss ... most people don't give it a moment's consideration. They kiss on meeting, they kiss on parting, that simple touching of flesh is taken entirely for granted as a basic human right.

Sarah Kay

#87. Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.

Sarah Kay

#88. I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you, and I choose both.

Sarah Kay

#89. I love books that create worlds for me that I don't want to leave. I recently lost my entire life to Haruki Murakami - 1Q84. I tell people that book ruined my life in the best possible way. I couldn't think of anything else for weeks after I read it.

Sarah Kay

#90. Be careful, darling. Your footsteps land heavy here. Your racket will wake the dragons.

Sarah Kay