“
If you're reading this...
Congratulations, you're alive.
If that's not something to smile about,
then I don't know what is.
”
”
Chad Sugg (Monsters Under Your Head)
“
He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.
”
”
Bob Marley
“
There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
”
”
Erin Hanson
“
I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
“
She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.
She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders)
“
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
”
”
Dylan Thomas (Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night)
“
I may not always be with you
But when we're far apart
Remember you will be with me
Right inside my heart
”
”
Marc Wambolt (Poems from the Heart)
“
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
”
”
John Greenleaf Whittier (John Greenleaf Whittier's Poetry: An Appraisal and a Selection)
“
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.
”
”
Edna St. Vincent Millay (The Selected Poetry)
“
Dare to love yourself
as if you were a rainbow
with gold at both ends.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
you
not wanting me
was
the beginning of me
wanting myself
thank you
”
”
Nayyirah Waheed
“
do not look for healing
at the feet of those
who broke you
”
”
Rupi Kaur (milk and honey)
“
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
”
”
Leonard Cohen
“
Poetry, she thought, wasn't written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
“
She was a beautiful dreamer. The kind of girl, who kept her head in the clouds, loved above the stars and left regret beneath the earth she walked on.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript oƒ a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi)
“
I dreamed I spoke in another's language,
I dreamed I lived in another's skin,
I dreamed I was my own beloved,
I dreamed I was a tiger's kin.
I dreamed that Eden lived inside me,
And when I breathed a garden came,
I dreamed I knew all of Creation,
I dreamed I knew the Creator's name.
I dreamed--and this dream was the finest--
That all I dreamed was real and true,
And we would live in joy forever,
You in me, and me in you.
”
”
Clive Barker (Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War)
“
Be silent and safe — silence never betrays you;
Be true to your word and your work and your friend;
Put least trust in him who is foremost to praise you,
Nor judge of a road till it draw to the end.
”
”
John Boyle O'Reilly (Life of John Boyle O'Reilly)
“
Falling in love is very real, but I used to shake my head when people talked about soul mates, poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but sounded pretty in a poetry book. Then, we met, and everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the sceptic, an ardent zealot.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
repeat after me:
you owe
no one
your forgiveness.
- except maybe yourself.
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1))
“
A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare
to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
Death is the easy part, the hard part is living and knowing you could be so much more then you’re willing to be.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
Each star is a mirror reflecting the truth inside you.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
Sometimes to self-discover you must self-destruct.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
You think of yourself
as a citizen of the universe.
You think you belong
to this world of dust and matter.
Out of this dust
you have created a personal image,
and have forgotten
about the essence of your true origin
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi)
“
Somewhere along the way we all go a bit mad. So burn, let go and dive into the horror, because maybe it’s the chaos which helps us find where we belong.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
A tamed woman will never leave her mark in the world.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.
”
”
Anaïs Nin
“
even
in the loneliest moments
i have been there
for myself.
”
”
Sanober Khan
“
We swallowed the chaos because we knew we didn't want to be ordinary.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
To those who abuse: the sin is yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpetrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest.
”
”
Flora Jessop (Church of Lies)
“
The best kind of humans are the ones who stay.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
and i said to my body. softly. ‘i want to be your friend.’ it took a long breath. and replied ‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.
”
”
Nayyirah Waheed
“
Exercises are like prose, whereas yoga is the poetry of movements. Once you understand the grammar of yoga; you can write your poetry of movements.
”
”
Amit Ray (Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style)
“
She was broken, I think it’s because she loved too much and she was always blind to the fact that love too is sometimes broken.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
Though we tremble before uncertain futures
may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength
may we dance in the face of our fears.
”
”
Gloria E. Anzaldúa
“
Madness and chaos are self-destructing but over thinking is the suicide.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
If I lived a million lives, I would've felt a million feelings and I still would've fallen a million times for you.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
”
”
Lao Tzu
“
But dear, don’t be afraid of love it’s only magic.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
Ô, Wanderess, Wanderess
When did you feel your
most euphoric kiss?
Was I the source
of your greatest bliss?
”
”
Roman Payne
“
Society will always be too fragile to accept us for all that makes us beautiful.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
Appreciate the moment of a first kiss; it may be the last time you own your heart.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
It does not matter how strong your gravity is, we were always meant to fly.
”
”
Sarah Kay
“
Suddenly, everything was beautiful. The way she viewed the world was nothing more but a reflection of herself.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
There's two kinds of women--those you write poems about and those you don't.
”
”
Jeffrey McDaniel
“
The truth is I didn’t need therapy; I just needed to feel loved and know that someone out there craved my attention.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
“
It’s funny, for all it took was a broken heart and that alone was enough, enough for her to do everything she ever dreamed of.
”
”
Robert M. Drake
“
If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.
”
”
Socrates
“
Each person you meet
is an aspect of yourself,
clamoring for love.
”
”
Eric Micha'el Leventhal
“
Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea.
Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar.
”
”
Antonio Machado (Campos de Castilla)
“
Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose...
...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke
“
If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”
She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up 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. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. 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.
And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, 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.”
But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.
I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.
You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but 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.
“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”
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.
Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
”
”
Sarah Kay
“
A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays)
“
Life has no victims. There are no victims in this life.
No one has the right to point fingers at his/her past and blame it for what he/she is today. We do not have the right to point our finger at someone else and blame that person for how we treat others, today.
Don’t hide in the corner, pointing fingers at your past. Don’t sit under the table, talking about someone who has hurt you. Instead, stand up and face your past! Face your fears! Face your pain! And stomach it all! You may have to do so kicking and screaming and throwing fits and crying- but by all means- face it!
This life makes no room for cowards.
”
”
C. JoyBell C. (The Sun Is Snowing: Poetry & Prose by C. Joybell C)
“
Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.
”
”
Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth)
“
Your daughter is ugly.
She knows loss intimately,
carries whole cities in her belly.
As a child, relatives wouldn’t hold her.
She was splintered wood and sea water.
They said she reminded them of the war.
On her fifteenth birthday you taught her
how to tie her hair like rope
and smoke it over burning frankincense.
You made her gargle rosewater
and while she coughed, said
macaanto girls like you shouldn’t smell
of lonely or empty.
You are her mother.
Why did you not warn her,
hold her like a rotting boat
and tell her that men will not love her
if she is covered in continents,
if her teeth are small colonies,
if her stomach is an island
if her thighs are borders?
What man wants to lay down
and watch the world burn
in his bedroom?
Your daughter’s face is a small riot,
her hands are a civil war,
a refugee camp behind each ear,
a body littered with ugly things
but God,
doesn’t she wear
the world well.
”
”
Warsan Shire
“
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (If You Forget Me)