Batool Sufyan > Batool'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

“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

“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

“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”
― 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

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

[Blueprint for a Breakthrough (2013)]”
― Shane Koyczan

“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

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

“Sometimes becoming drug free has less to do with addiction and more to do with sanity.”
― Shane Koyczan

“I was never meant to be this thing...”
― Shane Koyczan, Stickboy

“I can't stop.”
― Shane Koyczan, Stickboy

“He tried to kill himself in grade ten, when a kid who still had his mom and dad had the audacity to tell him ‘Get over it’. As if depression is something that can be remedied by any of the contents in a first aid-kit.”
― 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

“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

“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

“She tells me about dreams. She says my dreams are helium and balloons, and I've made the mistake of letting go a few to many times, but I still got this one. Tied around my finger like a wedding ring because even though I don't believe in marriages, I'm gonna bring this one home.”
― Shane Koyczan, Silence Is A Song I Know All The Words To

“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

“When I was a kid, I was fascinated by space
And I learnt that time slows near a black hole.
Inside a black hole, time stops altogether.
Whether or not this theory will ever be proved,
I’m moved to believe this would be the perfect place to love someone.”
― 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

“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

“So if anyone ever tells you:
You're not good enough!
You're not smart enough!
Give up your foolish dream!
If anyone ever tells you to quit,
You got to make them wear a diaper on their mouth
Because, man, they're just talking shit.”
― Shane Koyczan, Remembrance Year

“I think of the beauty in the obvious,
the way it forces us to admit how it exists,
the way it insists on being pointed out like a bloody nose,
or how every time it snows there is always someone around to say, “It’s snowing.”
But the obvious isn’t showing off, it’s only reminding us that time passes,
and that somewhere along the way we grow up.
Not perfect, but up and out.
It teaches us something about time,
that we are all ticking and tocking,
walking the fine line between days and weeks,
as if each second speaks of years,
and each month has years listening to forever but never hearing anything beyond centuries swallowed up by millenniums,
as if time was calculating the sums needed to fill the empty belly of eternity.
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.


My chest is a cannon that I have used to take aim and shoot my heart upon this world.
I love the way an uncurled fist becomes a hand again, because when I take notes,
I need it to underline the important parts of you:
happy, sad, lovely.
Battle cry ballistic like a disaster or a lipstick earthquaking and taking out the monuments of all my hollow yesterdays.
We’ll always have the obvious.
It reminds us who, and where we are, it lives like a heart shape,
like a jar that we hand to others and ask, “Can you open this for me?”
We always get the same answer: “Not without breaking it.”
More often than sometimes, I say go for it.”
― Shane Koyczan, Remembrance Year

“getting over it/ just means getting around it/ and sometimes/ you gotta go through it/ leave it torn and blasted apart”
― Shane Koyczan

“i remember how my grandmother tried to explain our world to me she told me a story she said the ground and the sky love each other but they don't have arms so rain is how they hold one another.”
― Shane Koyczan, A Bruise On Light

“And what I said was I’ll miss you,
What I meant to say was that I love you,
What I wanted to say was that I meant what I said
I miss you like I miss my own bed
after too many nights of sleeping on couches
or hardwood floors
Or sitting silently behind the doors
Of hotel rooms became wounds
Breathing life in to this loneliness
I miss you
Like a burn victim must miss their own skin
I miss you like a sad ending
Must miss someplace new to begin
Because some say that the highway becomes a flat line
if you travel it for too long
I can’t tell if that’s true or false,
But I’m racing down it towards you trying to find my
Pulse.”
― Shane Koyczan, Remembrance Year