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

— Rupi Kaur

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.

— Rupi Kaur

to-do list (after the breakup)1. Take refuge in your bed2. Cry. Till the tears stop (this will take a few days).3. Don’t listen to slow songs.4. Delete their number from your phone even though it is memorized on your fingertips.5. Don’t look at old photos.6. Find the closest ice cream shop and treat yourself to two scoops of mint chocolate chip. The mint will calm your heart. You deserve the chocolate.7. Buy new bedsheets.8. Collect all the gifts, t-shirts, and everything with their smell on it and drop it off at a donation center.9. Plan a trip.10. Perfect the art of smiling and nodding when someone brings their name up in conversation.11. Start a new project.12. Whatever you do. Do not call.13. Do not beg for what does not want to stay.14. Stop crying at some point.15. Allow yourself to feel foolish for believing you could’ve built the rest of your life in someone else’s stomach.16. Breathe.

— Rupi Kaur

What I miss most is how you loved me. But what I didn't know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person I was. It was a reflection of everything I gave to you. Coming back to me. How did I not see that. How. Did I sit here soaking in the idea that no one else would love me that way? When it was I that taught you. When it was I that showed you how to fill. The way I needed to be filled. How cruel I was to myself. Giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. Thinking it was you who gave me strength. Wit. Beauty. Simply because you recognized it. As if I was already not these things before I met you. As if I did not remain these once you left.

— Rupi Kaur

What terrifies me most is how we foam at the mouth with envy when others succeed but sigh in relief when they are failing our struggle to celebrate each other is what's proven most difficult in being human

— Rupi Kaur

When writing for the page, the focus is on the design - how the words appear on the page. I try to make it as direct and simple as possible.

— Rupi Kaur

When you are broken and he has left you do not question whether you wereenoughthe problem was you were so enough he was not able to carry it

— Rupi Kaur

You have to really understand that although certain memories or stories make you sad, you are not sad. Pull yourself out from that emotion and remember that.

— Rupi Kaur

You look at me and cry everything hurts hold you and whisper but everything can heal

— Rupi Kaur

You mustn't have to make them want you they must want you themselves

— Rupi Kaur