Rupi Kaur

I like B.C. because it's so beautiful, but I think Toronto's the greatest place because every corner of the world is here.

I can go to all these cool places around the world, but when we land at YYZ, I'm like, 'Yes! It's flat. It's concrete. I'm okay with this; my people are here.'

You're beautiful' was the compliment I craved so much. I didn't care if people called me smart or innovative - it was the number-one compliment I gave out to other women hoping it was given back to me. I heard people saying it to my best friends. It was the one I wanted to hear more than anything else.

If I body-shame a woman, it is more a reflection of me being critical of my body, me not being able to keep up to certain standards I have, and so making sure that the women around me feel the same way.

I wasn't entitled to dream so big. The idea of me being a writer wasn't even possible in my mind. Even when I began to write and first published, I couldn't call myself a writer.

There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse, loss, love, and healing through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant woman.

The trauma of South Asian people escapes the confines of our own times. We're not just healing from what's been inflicted onto us as children... it is generations of pain embedded into our souls.

How do you redefine love when your idea of love is something that's so violent? When your idea of passion is anger, how do you fix that?

I love Roald Dahl, Sharon Olds, Nizar Qabbani, who is a poet, and Junot Diaz.

Just because someone tells you they love you, it doesn't mean they actually do.

A lot of Indian fathers don't know how to show affection. My parents really do love me, even though my dad has never been able to say those words to me.

I can sit down with my sisters, and they can talk about my body in a certain way, and I will laugh about it with them. That's such a comfortable and loving relationship. But if a stranger I meet in a party makes the same comment, depending on their tone, that's not okay.