Bryan Austin > Quotes

“And then You came like a wildfire clearing the brush and ruins from my life. All those things I do not need. All those thoughts that do not serve me. You burned me clean. Now new shoots spring. Things take root and through Your love? A forest is born in me.”
― Bryan Austin, Paper Stars: poetry for life, and longing

“Poetry is this work in its most concentrated form. It condenses. It concentrates. It takes a full meal and compresses it into a single bite. It takes an ocean and concentrates it into a potion. ‌ A dash of aqua vitae‌ . It creates something small enough to carry, and makes it portable for uncertain trails.”
― Bryan Austin, Paper Stars: poetry for life, and longing

“The ancients believed art arrived from elsewhere. They believed the artist’s task was not to invent, but to listen. They called it genius. They called it a muse. It was never something that belonged fully to you. It was simply something you hosted . That understanding really takes the pressure off. Creation stops being a performance and becomes hospitality. My responsibility, then, is not to be great. Just hospitable. To make a place tranquil enough to listen, and quiet enough to hear. To treat creativity as a sacred guest.”
― Bryan Austin, Paper Stars: poetry for life, and longing

“When we write, we set something out with an open hand and ask, quietly: This is my mind. Do you recognize it? This is my heart. Does yours move this way too? This is my soul. Does it rhyme with yours?”
― Bryan Austin, Paper Stars: poetry for life, and longing

“Iron sharpens iron, but is it strength, or merely sameness — as if twin things, in tandem must enhance? Then let these whetstone words be paired. Connected. To let softness sharpen softness till it sparks. Till it’s sharp. Till it reigns.”
― Bryan Austin, Paper Stars: poetry for life, and longing