Shane Koyczan
I hid my heart under my bed because my mother said if you're not careful someday somebody's going to break it. Take it from me, under the bed is not a good hiding spot.
Bullying, to me, starts very small around the kindergarten age where the first thing we learn is to call each other names. Something so small can be so long lasting in someone's life.
I got bullied a lot when I was a kid, and because of that I thought for the most part that I didn't really have a childhood - I had to grow up so quick and there was no real enjoyment in that for me.
For me, growing up and going to school and not seeing any anti-bullying posters and not hearing people talk about bullying was very desolate.
When I was a kid, I used to think pork chops and karate chops were the same thing.
Having seen TED from a distance, I always thought if ever there was a place for someone like me, the outcasts, people who maintained who they are despite being told what they were, it was TED.
I think everybody gets bullied in their own way. Even athletes probably get it from their parents. To a degree everybody gets bullied.
When something's painful, you just avoid it. Why bother dredging up the past if it's nothing but bad stuff?
Opera is the original marriage of words and music, and there's a theatre element, a dramatic element. It's right up my alley.
I make a good living doing what I do.
For me, poetry was... the fastest way to express what I was feeling, what I was going through.
I guess initially I was amazed that somebody would see something within my work that they could really relate to, but the more it's happened, the more people have come forward, I've really realized that we're all kind of going through the same thing at the same time.
I accept that today may be imperfect... I accept that I may be as well. What I don't accept is that imperfection should be the crutch I use to excuse myself from participating in joy.Collection: Acceptance
The tiniest dream that you make happen is worth more than the biggest dream that you never attempt.Collection: Dream
I you can't see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror. Look a little closer, stare a little longer. Because there is 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.Collection: Beautiful
I will not stop. I will not slow down. I will not pull over to ask for directions. I will build the road that takes me where I want to be and I will drive, drive, drive. I will drive until the vehicle around me breaks down, falls apart and tumbles into useless debris... and then I will walk.Collection: Fall
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.Collection: Letting Go
And you are worth the time it takes to take the time to get to know you. We've managed to muttle through the awkward stage of i like you and you like me, but when we both finally said 'yes' life became a multiple choice test, not knowing anything we became each others best guess. and, holding your hand is less like exploration and more like discovery. lady, i don't have to study you to be sure. you're the choice i made before i knew what the other choices wereCollection: I Like You
I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean toward the opposite.Collection: Opposites
Look at an avalanche, and see that we are at our most powerful when we let go. Look at a flower, and see that we are at our most beautiful when we open up.Collection: Beautiful
If you think for one second no one knows what you've been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone - that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Goodbye
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 someoneCollection: Understanding
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.Collection: Beautiful
We come from the mentality, that rarely sees the horror in symmetry or the beauty in non-conformityCollection: Conformity
Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us - it's the only way we know how to say, be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now - let go.Collection: Letting Go
If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Moon
We're all shipwrecked on this idea that everything has to be explained.Collection: Ideas
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.Collection: I Hate You
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 toolshed. So broken heartstrings bled the blues, and we tried to empty ourselves so we'd feel nothing. Don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone...Collection: Lonely
If you can't see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror.Collection: Beauty
To discover the thing you're brilliant at you first have to endure realizing all the things you're average at.Collection: Discovery
Our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty.Collection: Pain
I have loved this life. I smile because I have tiny dreams that play hopscotch at the corners of my mouth. And every time I breathe they float, every time I laugh, they fly kites.Collection: Dream
This is my voice. There are many like it, but this one is mine.Collection: Voice
I've been shot down so many times, I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.Collection: Motivation
My heart is a protest that I let rally against my ribs.Collection: Heart
Don't let your luggage define your travels, each life unravels differently.Collection: Travel
That’s what we were told—stand up for yourself. But that’s hard to do if you don’t know who you are.Collection: Stand Up For Yourself
I don't want to turn any of this into poetry / but / you're so beautiful / flowers turn their heads to smell youCollection: Beautiful
Someone once told me that the finer points of devotion are about the size of a pinhole, and there are millions of them. And if you could connect each dot, then you’ve got a diagram of what you think you thought you knew, and if you’re willing to admit that you know nothing…you have the blueprint for a breakthrough.Collection: Thinking
Maybe the best we can hope for is that those we leave behind find comfort in knowing, that we’re born out of love, and not science. That biology explains the how, but love explains the whyCollection: Knowing
Look directly into every mirror. Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story, and our story starts: We were here.Collection: Reflection
Don't tell me that [broken heartstrings] hurt 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.Collection: Hurt
Sometimes becoming drug free has less to do with addiction and more to do with sanity.Collection: Addiction
Effort is the siamese twin of successCollection: Effort
A question like “do you love me?” was an itch our doctors told us not to scratch.Collection: Doctors
I accept any challenge, so challenge meCollection: Challenges
You, me, this city, this country, we will always have a choice.When you stand up to be counted, tell the world, THIS IS MY VOICE. There are many like it, but this one is mine.Collection: Country