Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I want to leave behind a literary legacy.
I think I only started to speak to people in grade four.
I don't fit into the age, race, or class of a bestselling poet.
Poetry and art are key influences in changing how we look at taboos.
Truth, honesty, empowerment - it's what I want for myself and my readers.
I love Roald Dahl, Sharon Olds, Nizar Qabbani, who is a poet, and Junot Diaz.
I think I finally overcame my self-esteem and confidence issues at around 20.
Just because someone tells you they love you, it doesn't mean they actually do.
When things get better, there's a swing to the pendulum where things get worse for others.
Social media has been such a big platform for my success. But it can also be a toxic place.
My heart is beating, and I'm breathing, and nothing anybody has ever done has changed that.
I did not start out thinking I'm going to become a feminist poet. It was a tag I was given.
I realize I'm blessed to have the luxury of being a full-time writer. Not many people have that.
People like that I wrote a book - that's cute, but oh, making a business out of it? That's not nice.
Being that my parents and I were immigrants to Canada, I didn't have the most lavish life growing up.
Before I begin to write, I listen to music that inspires me. I listen to folk Punjabi music, sufi music.
I was always writing for myself. I wrote what I needed to write and hear - that's what makes it powerful.
I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student - but I knew I was never going to be picked up.
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.
I always wrote stories, but I do remember a particular moment in middle school where I became passionate about essay writing.
There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse, loss, love, and healing through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant woman.
Why are brown women bullying brown women for body hair? Why are brown women bullying brown women for the same traits we all have?
The way a small child might dream of visiting Disneyland, I dreamed of writing books. Never did I think my poems would become that.
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.
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?
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.
A lot of Indian fathers don't know how to show affection. My parents really do love me, even though my dad has never been able to say those words to me.
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.
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.
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.
I can go to all these cool places around the world, but when we land at YYZ, I'm like, 'Yes! It's flat. It's concrete. I'm okay with this; my people are here.'
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.
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.
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.
I was born in India, and we came from a poor family and lived in a rural village. My dad came over to Canada as a refugee, and years later, we were able to join him.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I grew up thinking I was going to change the world, but not because I was treated like a special snowflake. It's a silly label. People are starving. We need to feed them. That's the end of the conversation.
I won the speech competition in class, and I always say this was my first 'spoken word performance.' It was the first time I got on stage and recited something. I fell in love with the stage at the age of 12.
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.