Quotes from Shane Koyczan

I don't want to turn any of this into poetry / but / you're so beautiful / flowers turn their heads to smell you

For me, growing up and going to school and not seeing any anti-bullying posters and not hearing people talk about bullying was very desolate.

I think everybody gets bullied in their own way. Even athletes probably get it from their parents. To a degree everybody gets bullied.

Maybe the best we can hope for is that those we leave behind find comfort in knowing, that we're born out of love, and not science. That biology explains the how, but love explains the why

Don't tell me that [broken heartstrings] hurt less than a broken bone, that an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away, that there's no way for it to metastasize - it does.

Having seen TED from a distance, I always thought if ever there was a place for someone like me, the outcasts, people who maintained who they are despite being told what they were, it was TED.

My experiences with violence in schools still echo throughout my life but standing to face the problem has helped me in immeasurable ways.

For me, poetry was... the fastest way to express what I was feeling, what I was going through.

When something's painful, you just avoid it. Why bother dredging up the past if it's nothing but bad stuff?

Bullying, to me, starts very small around the kindergarten age where the first thing we learn is to call each other names. Something so small can be so long lasting in someone's life.

Opera is the original marriage of words and music, and there's a theatre element, a dramatic element. It's right up my alley.

I got bullied a lot when I was a kid, and because of that I thought for the most part that I didn't really have a childhood - I had to grow up so quick and there was no real enjoyment in that for me.

I have loved this life. I smile because I have tiny dreams that play hopscotch at the corners of my mouth. And every time I breathe they float, every time I laugh, they fly kites.

I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean toward the opposite.

I guess initially I was amazed that somebody would see something within my work that they could really relate to, but the more it's happened, the more people have come forward, I've really realized that we're all kind of going through the same thing at the same time.

If you can't see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror.

I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.

Don't tell me that [broken heartstrings] hurt less than a broken bone, that an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away, that there's no way for it to metastasize — it does.

I was surviving school more than experiencing it.

I've been told that people in the army do more by 7:00 am than I do in an entire day But if I wake at 6:59 am and turn to you to trace the outline of your lips with mine I will have done enough and killed no one in the process.

I sit before flowers hoping they will train me in the art of opening up I stand on mountain tops believing that avalanches will teach me to let go I know nothing but I am here to learn.

Don't let your luggage define your travels, each life unravels differently.

If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces." [ Blueprint for a Breakthrough (2013)]

And you are worth the time it takes to take the time to get to know you. We've managed to muttle through the awkward stage of i like you and you like me, but when we both finally said 'yes' life became a multiple choice test, not knowing anything we became each others best guess. and, holding your hand is less like exploration and more like discovery. lady, i don't have to study you to be sure. you're the choice i made before i knew what the other choices were