Top 90 Sarah Kay Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “You can be an artist, work hard for your work and also share while trying to create community with other artists.”

— Sarah Kay

52. “I am watching parts of me evaporate like sidewalk water. This wet grey, this nighttime dew, gone before morning.”

— Sarah Kay

53. “There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.”

— Sarah Kay

54. “Nothing is as universal as some good scatalogical humor. Even if it means having to be a little silly or cheeky, I think it is worth it.”

— Sarah Kay

55. “Poetry makes people nervous. Especially in schools.”

— Sarah Kay

56. “We build model ships in bottles, whispering life into the toothpicks and wire; we make plans and blueprints for the one we hope is coming. And come they do. Fleets of vessels. Battleships and barges. They arrive on the horizon, flags to the sky.”

— Sarah Kay

57. “Ever hear that expression, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”? That’s what high school was like for me. Both of those – all the time.”

— Sarah Kay

58. “Once, she fell off of a ladder when I was three. She says all she was worried about was my face as I watched her fall.”

— Sarah Kay

59. “Part of what I try to do in schools is take poetry off of a pedestal and make it a little more accessible and approachable.”

— Sarah Kay

60. “And somewhere in between then and now irony slipped its way into my vocabulary. Laughter became the antidote for guilt. Sacrifice grew to be a Band-Aid for shame.”

— Sarah Kay

61. “Thinking about writing as an act of celebration is sometimes a helpful framework for me. It allows me to prioritize what I want to call attention to and what I want others to know about me. It makes me ask: What is worth celebrating?”

— Sarah Kay

62. “And I’m going to pain the solar systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

— Sarah Kay

63. “I often tell people to stop being afraid of writing bad poetry, or bad anything. I think that a lot of times, when people claim that they have writer’s block, or that they get stuck, it’s just because they’re scared of writing bad things.”

— Sarah Kay

64. “Our day-to-day lives are pretty chaotic. So in terms of the writing part, you have to get pretty disciplined about finding quiet moments and making sure you’re making time for the art side, on top of all the time-consuming business side.”

— Sarah Kay

65. “I think there is a human instinct to tell stories, no matter who you are or where you live.”

— Sarah Kay

66. “I fell in love with poetry through storytelling, so my poetry tends to be fairly narrative. I like characters, I like having a beginning, middle, and ending, though not necessarily in that order.”

— Sarah Kay

67. “In New York, when a tree dies, nobody mourns that it was cut down in its prime. Nobody counts the rings, notifies the loved ones. There are other trees. We can always squeeze in one more. Mind the tourists. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t wanna live there.”

— Sarah Kay

68. “I love hands like I love people. They are the maps and compasses with which we navigate our way through life, feeling our way over mountains passed and valleys crossed; they are our histories.”

— Sarah Kay

69. “We were dandelion seeds released to the wind, she asked for no return. We are saplings now. With gentle hands.”

— Sarah Kay

70. “Every moment I choose to write about is one I have deemed important enough to dwell inside of and share with others. I am holding this moment up to the light and saying, “Wow, will you look at that?””

— Sarah Kay

71. “No, I don’t think poems will save us. And yet, and yet.”

— Sarah Kay

72. “You love each other until the city becomes beautiful.”

— Sarah Kay

73. “One of my highest priorities as an educator is to be as inclusive as possible.”

— Sarah Kay

74. “It is equally important to listen as it is to speak.”

— Sarah Kay

75. “Me – I was not born with enough fuel. My anger often melts into sadness, it will just disintegrate into shame or fear, my clenched teeth release into chatter.”

— Sarah Kay

76. “Let the statues crumble. You have always been the place.”

— Sarah Kay

77. “I will wake up early with my heavy heartbeat. You will say. Can’t we just sleep in, and I will say, No, trust me. You don’t want to miss a thing.”

— Sarah Kay

78. “Some nights, I wake up knowing he is anxious. He is across the world in another woman’s arms and the years have spread us like dandelion seeds, sanding down the edges of our jigsaw parts that used to only fit each other.”

— Sarah Kay

79. “She makes tea by hand. Nettles, slippery elm, turmeric, cinnamon – my mother is a recipe for warm throats and belly laughs. Once she fell off a ladder when I was three. She says all she was worried about was my face as I watched her fall.”

— Sarah Kay

80. “Our model ships look perfect in their bottles, but we do not know if they are seaworthy. Sometimes the one that reaches your harbor has already been through the storm.”

— Sarah Kay

81. “There is a girl who still writes you; she doesn’t know how not to.”

— Sarah Kay

82. “What is it about immortality? With the right sword and shield, we think we can fend off anger, fear, and hatred. If our legs are strong enough, we think we can outrun age, loss, and death.”

— Sarah Kay

83. “Sure, I know where most things are but give me enough time and I can lose anything.”

— Sarah Kay

84. “A sky still fits the ignition. There just isn’t anything left to drive.”

— Sarah Kay

85. “When I meet you, in that moment, I am no longer a part of your future. I start quickly becoming part of your past. But in that instant, I get to share a part of your present. And you get to share a part of mine. And that is the greatest present of all.”

— Sarah Kay

86. “And then there are days when sleeping is the hardest. The fight of muscle against world becomes so constant, that surrendering to slumber doesn’t promise nearly enough relief. These are times when hands feel nothing but empty.”

— Sarah Kay

87. “I know you’ve taken to wearing tour father’s hand-me-down anger. But I wish that you wouldn’t. It’s a few sizes too big and everyone can see it doesn’t fit you...”

— Sarah Kay

88. “We both know how to hide our sharpest parts, I just don’t always recognize my own weaponry.”

— Sarah Kay

89. “He will never marry her, the translator tells me, after we have been driving in the dark for a few minutes. Yes, I say, but he can love her.”

— Sarah Kay

90. “There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry.”

— Sarah Kay

91. “It does not matter how long we have been kept in cages. It does not matter how strong your gravity is. We were always meant to fly.”

— Sarah Kay

92. “Impossible is trying to connect in this world; trying to hold on to others when things are blowing up around you; knowing that while you are speaking, they aren’t just waiting for their turn to talk. They hear you.”

— Sarah Kay

93. “And the first time you come down to dinner, and your son is sitting at the dining room table wearing your hatred on his shoulders, who is going to be the first to tell him it is finally time to take it off?”

— Sarah Kay