Jenna > Jenna's Quotes

“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.”
― Shane Koyczan

“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.”
― Shane Koyczan

“Don't let your luggage define your travels, each life unravels differently.”
― Shane Koyczan

“And as for romance? Well, I want that too.
I want to fall asleep next to you, 100 times a night,
so I can know you 100 times better before we hit the day light. And despite all of this,
I also want amnesia so I can relive each kiss with a perfect newness
that leaves me smashed in the arms of rapture. I want the sky to fracture under
the impossible weight of an apology because I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I want so much.
I'm sorry that I'm using "I'm sorry" as a crutch to lean on for so long
but if you sing me that song of sweet logic again then I promise to make the effort
to stand on my own. There is a reason that our hearts are more like a muscle
and less like a bone. I've known so many people who've have grown up flexing
in front of mirrors and falling for their own reflection as if that's adequate but that's bullshit.
Because we only get now until the time we go and if they've only got time to love themselves
then nobody is going to be around to hear the sound of their heartbeat echo.
So lady, don't expect an apology when I tell you I'm only held together
by a heart that pumps blue, it's the strongest muscle in my body and I'm flexing it for you”
― Shane Koyczan

“We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog because we see ourselves in them.”
― Shane Koyczan

“and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s 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”
― SHANE KOYCZAN

“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
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does”
― Shane Koyczan

“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.”
― 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”
― Shane Koyczan, Visiting Hours

“I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean toward the opposite.”
― Shane Koyczan

“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.”
― Shane Koyczan

“My heart is a protest that I let rally against my ribs.”
― Shane Koyczan

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

“You see, the deaf have an intimacy with silence. It’s there in their dreams.”
― Shane Koyczan

“but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s 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”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong”
― Shane Koyczan

“To discover the thing you're brilliant at you first have to endure realizing all the things you're average at.”
― Shane Koyczan

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

“I do my best impression of a pen
and when every problem looks like a page
I commit ink to paper”
― Shane Koyczan, Visiting Hours

“everything she meant to say was
you've given a worth and happiness to my life
that I had no right to believe could ever exist”
― Shane Koyczan, Visiting Hours

“Beethoven
his thoughts moving at
the speed of sound
transforming emotion into music
and for a moment
it was like joy
was a tangible thing
like you could touch it
like for the first time
we could watch love and
hate dance together
in a waltz of such precision and beauty
that we finally understood
the history wasn’t important
to know the man
all we ever had to do was
listen.”
― Shane Koyczan

“It’s not magic. I remember because I make comparisons. Not in terms of better or worse, just different. And not all of these memories are great, but they’re mine.
Which lends way to believe, that none of our lives are put together on an assembly line. We’re not pre-packaged with memories or programmed with stories. We have to make our own.”
― Shane Koyczan

“There’s 6.5 billion people curled up like fists protesting death, but every breath we take has to be given back; a nine year old boy taught me that.”
― Shane Koyczan

“I smile because there are tiny dreams that play hopscotch at the corners of my mouth, and every time I breathe they float and every time I laugh they fly kites.”
― Shane Koyczan

“The truth is there’s not enough miracles to go around, kid. And there’s too many people petitioning God for the winning lotto ticket. And for every answered prayer, there’s a cricket with arthritis. And the only reason we can’t find answers is because the search party didn’t invite us.”
― Shane Koyczan

“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.”
― Shane Koyczan

“It's not about putting forth the questions, it's about accepting the answers we ask for.”
― Shane Koyczan, Silence Is A Song I Know All The Words To

“We don't always get the answers we want, sometimes a simple look can haunt us enough to know some ghosts need their rest.”
― Shane Koyczan, Silence Is A Song I Know All The Words To

“Please, sit in my sky and let me polish your shine.”
― Shane Koyczan

“Be nice to everyone, always smile, and appreciate things because it could all be gone tomorrow.”
― Ed Sheeran

“Pain is only relevant if it still hurts.”
― Ed Sheeran