Charlotte Eriksson Quotes

“Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy.
There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, You're Doing Just Fine

“I haven’t been very impressed lately.
By people,
or places,
or the way someone said he loved me and then slowly changed his mind.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“It doesn’t matter how many times you leave, it will always hurt to come back and remember what you once had and who you once were. Then it will hurt just as much to leave again, and so it goes over and over again.
Once you’ve started to leave, you will run your whole life.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“But I was young
and didn’t know better
and someone should have told me to capture every second
every kiss & every night
Because now I’m sitting here alone and it’s getting really hard to breath because tears are growing in my throat and they want to break out, but there are people
watching
and I just want to be somewhere silent
somewhere still
But still I don’t want to be alone because I’m scared and lonely
and I don’t understand
Because I was alone my whole life
My whole life
I was so damn lonely and I was content with that
because I liked myself and my own company
and I didn’t need anyone
I thought
But then there was you .. ...

So, someone should have told me that love is for those few brave who can handle the unbearable emptiness,
the unbearable guilt and lack of oneself,
Because I lost myself to someone I love
and I might get myself back one day
but it will take time, it will take time.

This is gonna take some time.

I wish someone would have told me this.
Someone should have told me this.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, You're Doing Just Fine

“I just want to be someone, to mean something to anyone…”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I don’t need anyone else to distract me from myself anymore,
like I always thought I would.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, You're Doing Just Fine

“So many people will tell you ”no”, and you need to find something you believe in so hard that you just smile and tell them ”watch me”. Learn to take rejection as motivation to prove people wrong. Be unstoppable. Refuse to give up, no matter what. It’s the best skill you can ever learn.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I want to learn how to speak to anyone at any time and make us both feel a little bit better, lighter, richer, with no commitments of ever meeting again. I want to learn how to stand wherever with whoever and still feel stable. I want to learn how to unlock the locks to our minds, my mind, so that when I hear opinions or views that don’t match up with mine, I can still listen and understand. I want to burn up lifeless habits of following maps and to-do lists, concentrated liquids to burn my mind and throat
and I want to go back to the way nature shaped me. I want to learn to go on well with whatever I have in my hands at the moment
in a natural state of mind,
certain like the sea.

I will find comfort in the rhythm of the sea.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I woke up early and took the first train to take me away from the city. The noise and all its people. I was alone on the train and had no idea where I was going, and that’s why I went there. Two hours later we arrived in a small town, one of those towns with one single coffee shop and where everyone knows each other’s name. I walked for a while until I found the water, the most peaceful place I know. There I sat and stayed the whole day, with nothing and everything on my mind, cleaning my head. Silence, I learned, is some times the most beautiful sound.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I am not collarbones or drunken letters never sent. I am not the way I leave or left or didn’t know how to handle anything,
at any time,
and I am not your fault.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“So you will meet many ’someones’ who will give a new definition to your name.
And you can not build walls, must not close the door and please don’t hide,
because if you ask me about hurt
and love
I will say love. Love because the hurt will come and go no matter what, but only love makes it worth while. Only love can cure it.
Don’t be scared. Go. Love.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I am a complicated person with a simple life and I am the reason for everything that ever happened to me.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen yourself? I believe in writing your own story.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I never said it was easy to find your place in this world, but I’m coming to the conclusion that if you seek to please others, you will forever be changing because you will never be yourself, only fragments of someone you could be. You need to belong to yourself, and let others belong to themselves too. You need to be free and detached from things and your surroundings. You need to build your home in your own simple existence, not in friends, lovers, your career or material belongings, because these are things you will lose one day. That’s the natural order of this world. This is called the practice of detachment.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“Spend more time doing things that make you forget about the time.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“Dear world, I am excited to be alive in you, and I am thankful for another year.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“The world is filled with so many beautiful people after all and who am I to think that you will hold on, hold on to me, because who am I and what are we?”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“Do what ought to be done, here and now, to get you somewhere — anywhere.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I never really found a way to fit in or stand out and I lost myself in the crowd and people’s expectations.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“This year has taught me the simple craft of belief. I believe in the things I’ve nurtured and built this year. Slowly but carefully. Such as understanding, knowledge, passion, strength; the hundreds of songs I’ve written, the 365 poems, the books I’ve read and the miles I’ve run. The resolution to breathe, to meditate, to not harm my mind or body even when I’ve felt like it. ”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“the world is being built up by greedy people wanting higher towers and then there’s a war or a hurricane or a tsunami or a virus or a financial collapse
happening
to put things in balance.
this has happened all through history and the humankind survives and moves on.
this is not an exception: this is a rule.
and you are not granted to stay here, that is not your right. you were handed a gift of walking here for a little while, breathing the air, feeling things, but did you say thank you? ever? or just took for granted, carried life like a burden and now you’re being angry because suddenly things outside of your control are threatening your peace?
why do you let your peace depend on things outside of your control in the first place?”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“People come and go all the time but I’ve built a castle around me, making it hard for anyone to enter. I just want to feel safe. I just want to be fine. 
But then someone leaves and I am alone and now I wish for nothing more than people people all kinds of people to come into my castle where we can sit in a ring and hold hands and tell stories and keep warm. Everyone would be welcome. Everyone would just love each other and I would heal. slowly. remembering all the things I’ve written before. but it’s so hard now. poetry says so little some days. but i know it will, soon, again.

I have no one around so I talk to myself, turned the mic on one night and somewhere on the way I formulated proper thoughts and real ideas, and my heart felt a little better after every hour and I fell in love with the thought that maybe by sharing the things that keep me up at night, I could help someone else, maybe? Or just, have a conversation with you? If you care? I would love to let you in—into my castle—the door is open. 
It’s like ... I’m sitting on a chair with my hands resting on my legs, palms turned open to the sky. I have so little in me, but I would give you whatever I can. just … stay? a little? hold my hand? tell me something. Loneliness is so hard when you’re left in it.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“What do you learn from loving someone?
You learn to let go when it’s time.

Did you let go yet? Did you love him a little more? Keep loving, keep letting go. Don’t stop.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“It’s your bones against mine.
The slight curve in your spine
and it’s Sunday:
I don’t have to think about suicide.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“You know you’ve moved on when you find other people beautiful.
when you don’t avert your eyes but keep them steady
or when you stay the night, the last one at the party,
and you don’t feel sorry. or empty. or guilty
because whatever, where are you going anyway?”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“so if you’d see me now
on these streets
where I once imagined walking with you
you’d have a hard time recognising me.

It takes a lot to run away.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“I think I’ll be happier writing with no money than not writing with a lot of money.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“There is a switch in the air tonight. It’s not suffocating, like breakups all those years ago, but clean and clear. He does not want me anymore so I tilt my head, take a breath and say, “Okay. I understand.”

It’s calm now. My heart didn’t break, it kept on beating like a stoic marching forward without looking back, and I will be a writer now.

I love so many people, still.
I think I will write about them forever.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“You know you’ve moved on when you find other people beautiful.
When you don’t avert your eyes but keep them steady
or when you stay the night, the last one at the party,
and you don’t feel sorry. or empty. or guilty
because whatever, where are you going anyway?

i used to sit here, in this same pub in this same city
7 years ago, writing another book,
like i am now
again
and i wrote myself out of heartbreak with that book
like i am now
i guess.
in some ways maybe i’ve written myself into heartbreak this time but i’m coming out of it.
at least i find other people beautiful again. they make me smile. maybe more than i have before and i have a good feeling about things.

You know you’ve moved on when you find other people beautiful.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss