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35 Stunning Rupi Kaur Quotes On Love, Heartbreak, And More

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Beth O'Brien

Staff Writer

Beth is an east coast Canadian, born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is (unsurprisingly) obsessed with books and is a public library assistant and book blogger. When she’s not convincing all her friends to be friends with each other, she’s trying to convince them to read YA. She likes poetry and coffee and the ocean, but her true love is her cat Edith.

Rupi Kaur is the bestselling poet of milk and honey and the sun and her flowers. Her poems are about love, family, heartbreak, racism, sexism, and more. She’s insanely quotable, managing to bring forth powerful emotion in simple language. I love all the words she writes, but here are 35 of my favourite Rupi Kaur quotes, including milk and honey quotes!

rupi kaur quotes

Kaur is loved because she expresses relatable things many people can’t put into words. Not only so, but as a woman, particularly a woman of South Asian descent, she gives a voice to many who don’t have one. As she said in Rolling Stone:

“This name [Kaur] is so important on a bookshelf. That’s the name of every Sikh woman. If I was six years old and I saw this in Barnes and Nobles, I would cry. I would sit there and be like, ‘If she can do it, I can do it.'”

milk and honey Quotes

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“how you love yourself/is how you teach others/to love you”

“trying to convince myself/i am allowed/to take up space/is like writing with/my left hand/when i was born/to use my right” 

“nothing is safer/than the sound of you/reading aloud to me—the perfect date”

“you might not have been my first love/but you were the love that made/all the other loves/irrelevant”

“don’t mistake/salt for sugar/if he wants to/be with you/he will/it’s that simple”

“i didn’t leave because/i stopped loving you/i left because the longer/i stayed the less/i loved myself”

“i am not a hotel room i am home/i am not the whiskey you want/i am the water you need/don’t come here with expectations/and try to make a vacation out of me”

“the thing/worth holding onto/would not have let go”

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In the spirit of intl women's day

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“when you are broken/and he has left you/do not question/whether you were/enough/the problem was/you were so enough/he was not able to carry it”

“if you were born with/the weakness to fall/you were born with/the strength to rise”

“you were not wrong for leaving/you were wrong for coming back/and thinking/you could have me/when it was convenient/and leave when it was not”

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“our backs/tell stories/no books have/the spine to/carry—women of color”

“other women’s bodies/are not our battle grounds”

“loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself”

“my heart aches for sisters more than anything/it aches for women helping women/like flowers ache for spring”

 

rupi kaur quotes from the sun and her flowers

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🌸♥️🌸 page 109 from #thesunandherflowers

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“you left/and i wanted you still/yet i deserved someone/who was willing to stay”

“what draws you to her/tell me what you like/so i can practice”

“it takes monsters to steal souls/and fighters to reclaim them”

“you do not just wake up and become the butterfly—growth is a process”

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page 215 from #thesunandherflowers 🌻

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“i can’t wrap my head around the fact/that i have to convince half the world’s population/that my body is not their bed”

“they have no idea what it is like/to lose home at the risk of/never finding home again/to have your entire life/split between two lands and/become the bridges between two countries—immigrant”

“borders/are man-made/they divide us physically/don’t let them make us/turn on each other—we are not enemies

“never feel guilty for starting again”

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“the right one does not/stand in your way/they make space for you/to step forward”

“representation/is vital/otherwise the butterfly/surrounded by a group of moths/unable to see itself/will keep trying to become the moth”

“to heal/you have to/get to the root/of the wound/and kiss it all the way up”

“trust your body/it reacts to right and wrong/better than your mind does”

And finally

Rupi Kaur Quotes

Quote from Rolling Stone and photo from Unsplash.

 

What are your favorite Rupi Kaur quotes? Want to read even more poets like Rupi Kaur? We got you with “5 Poets To Read If You Like Rupi Kaur.”