Shane Koyczan Quotations

When I was a kid, I used to think pork chops and karate chops were the same thing.

I hid my heart under my bed because my mother said if you're not careful someday somebody's going to break it. Take it from me, under the bed is not a good hiding spot.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I make a good living doing what I do.

A question like “do you love me?” was an itch our doctors told us not to scratch.

We're all shipwrecked on this idea that everything has to be explained.

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

We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog because we see ourselves in them.

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

To discover the thing you're brilliant at you first have to endure realizing all the things you're average at.

This is my voice. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

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 accept any challenge, so challenge me

Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us - it's the only way we know how to say, be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now - let go.

Our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act, that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty

If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.

I’m not the only kid who grew up this way. Surrounded by people who used to say that rhyme about sticks and stones. As if broken bones hurt more than the names we got called, and we got called them all. So we grew up believing no one would ever fall in love with us. That we’d be lonely forever. That we’d never meet someone to make us feel like the sun was something they built for us in their tool shed. So broken heart strings bled the blues as we tried to empty ourselves so we would feel nothing. Don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone.

Don't tell me you're not beautiful. You're the kind of beautiful the blind would see if we could figure out some way to give them three seconds of sight.

Scrape the grey sky clean. Realize every grey cloud is a smoke screen to blind us from the truth, and the truth is whether we see them or not the sun and moon are still there, and always there is light.

We come from the mentality, that rarely sees the horror in symmetry or the beauty in non-conformity

Look at an avalanche, and see that we are at our most powerful when we let go. Look at a flower, and see that we are at our most beautiful when we open up.

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.

We so seldom understand each other. But if understanding is neither here nor there, and the universe is infinite, then understand that no matter where we go we will always be smack dab in the middle of nowhere. All we can do is share some piece of ourselves, and hope that it’s remembered. Hope that we meant something to someone

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

I you can't see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror. Look a little closer, stare a little longer. Because there is something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit. You built a cast around your broken heart and signed it yourself, you signed it THEY WERE WRONG.

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

If you think for one second no one knows what you've been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone - that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion.

What I said was I’ll miss you what I meant to say was I love you what I wanted to say was that I meant what I said and it’s funny how all those things I could have said flooded my head after we said goodbye and I should have told you I’d be willing to hold you until my flesh crumbles into bone because I’m willing to die alone but god knows I don’t want to live that way.

The tiniest dream that you make happen is worth more than the biggest dream that you never attempt.

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

I accept that today may be imperfect... I accept that I may be as well. What I don't accept is that imperfection should be the crutch I use to excuse myself from participating in joy.

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.

I will not stop. I will not slow down. I will not pull over to ask for directions. I will build the road that takes me where I want to be and I will drive, drive, drive. I will drive until the vehicle around me breaks down, falls apart and tumbles into useless debris... and then I will walk.

But we are more than genteel or civilized/ we are an idea in the process of being realized.

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

You see, the deaf have an intimacy with silence. It’s there in their dreams.

I was never meant to be this thing...

You, me, this city, this country, we will always have a choice.When you stand up to be counted, tell the world, THIS IS MY VOICE. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

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 sit before flowers 
hoping they will train me in the art 
of opening up

My heart is a protest that I let rally against my ribs.

Sometimes becoming drug free has less to do with addiction and more to do with sanity.

That’s what we were told—stand up for yourself. But that’s hard to do if you don’t know who you are.

Look directly into every mirror. Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story, and our story starts: We were here.

Effort is the siamese twin of success

Someone once told me that the finer points of devotion are about the size of a pinhole, and there are millions of them. And if you could connect each dot, then you’ve got a diagram of what you think you thought you knew, and if you’re willing to admit that you know nothing…you have the blueprint for a breakthrough.

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

Scrape the grey sky clean, realize that every dark cloud is a smokescreen meant to blind us from the truth

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