Charlotte Eriksson Quotes

“I once lay in a hospital myself praying to keep myself alive and I’ve lain on several grounds too and I know for a fact it’s not very different praying to get to stay alive and praying to want to stay alive.”

Healing Depression Anxiety Survival Mental Health Recovery Book Quotes Stay Alive

Book:He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

Source: He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“I never told you about the trip to Portugal 3 years ago when I read Fernando Pessoa at 1 a.m. outside a small family-run restaurant by the harbour. If I close my eyes I can still smell the salt water and the fish, some sort of cleaning powder scent from the kitchen, can still feel the heat, a soft wind and me sitting with wide open eyes on my own at 1 a.m. writing what I thought was profound and excellent. I felt like a writer then. I was not a girlfriend or a daughter or a songwriter who never got signed—I was a writer in the truest sense and I lived in my own flames.”

Writing Travel Writer Free Journal Letter Nomad Portugal Fernando Pessoa Lisbon

Book:He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

Source: He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“I never have time to write anymore. And when I do I only write about how I never have time. It's work and it's money and I've written more lists than songs lately. I stay up all night to do all these things I need to do, be all these things I want to be, playing with shadows in the darkness that shouldn't be able to exist. Empty bottles and cigarettes while watching the sunrise, why do I complain? I have it all, everything I ever asked for.”

Source: Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“Sweet girl, maybe close the world off and look at him for an hour or two. This is your fairy. It ain’t perfect and it ain’t honey sweet with roses on the bed. It’s real and raw and ugly at times. But this is your love. Don’t throw it away searching for someone else’s love. Don’t be greedy. Instead, shelter it. Protect it. Capture every second of easy, pull through every storm of hardship. And when you can, look at him, lying next to you, trusting you not to harm him. Trusting you not to go. Be someone’s someone for someone. Be that someone for him.”

Love Easy Love Quotes Trust Protect Heartbreak True Love Ugly Storm Fairy Hardship Shelter Love Poem Look Stay Someone Trusting

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“It’s January and I’m kicking snow off the ground. I just threw out the flower you made me promise to water, handle with care, because I was too careless, you said. Careless with things and people, around me and behind and I remember being still for just a second or two, thinking that it’s so much easier to leave and start anew, than take care of what’s already here.”

People Poetry Water Friendship Flower Friends Take Care Snow Prose Careless Grow Self Growth January Things Start Leave Realisation Ground Be Still Taking Care Start Anew

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“The most violent thing about love is how quietly it leaves.”

Love Love Quotes Violence Quiet Heartbreak Leaving

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“Freedom can choke you if you don't know how to handle it.”

Life Artist Freedom Creativity Learning Entrepreneur Stuck Writer Free Choke Nomad Nomadic The Glass Child

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“I learn my world through writing.”

Writing Writer On Writing Songwriter The Glass Child Amwriting Writerslife

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“First they told me: “build a following and the industry will follow.” So I spent my entire 20s building a following on zero budget, getting by on donations. Then they told me: “You need a literary agent. But a literary agent wants to see you have a following and something big going on.” So I started my own small press and self published 5 books and spent day and night connecting with my people until I’d sold over 35,000 copies in 35 different countries and now they tell me: “no agent wants to work with a self published author.” Sometimes I feel like I was doomed from the very start, the very day I sat my food on that plane to London 12 years ago. Like the whole world keeps saying “you can fight all you want but we won’t let you in.” But I do have freedom and I do have my following and I have vulnerable souls writing to me on Friday nights, about loss and hope and how my books or music or words played a small part in something they went through and sometimes I think I would throw all that away just to have a literary agent and a management and the contracts and headlines… because I’m tired.. of always fighting uphill.. but then I get that message, on a Monday night, and I take my computer to a bar close to where I live in Berlin, high above the city, and I write like never before because I have my people and vulnerable souls to find and I have so many books in me and time is not endless, time is crucial, and lately I’ve felt it running out, some nights, so I’m writing another book that won’t be noticed by the agents but I have my people and that’s all I will care about from now on. My people and my freedom, with time running out. That’s what I will focus on.”

Entrepreneurship Writing Process Writing Life Literary Indie Author Authors On Writing Self Publishing Book Publishing Literary Agent

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“I was free with every road as my home. No limitations and no commitments. But then summer passed and winter came and I fell short for safety. I fell for its spell, slowly humming me to sleep, because I was tired and small, too weak to take or handle those opinions and views, attacking me from every angle. Against my art, against my self, against my very way of living. I collected my thoughts, my few possessions and built isolated walls around my values and character. I protected my own definition of beauty and success like a treasure at the bottom of the sea, for no one saw what I saw, or felt the same as I did, and so I wanted to keep to myself. You hide to protect yourself.”

Source: Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“Dear me, one day I'll make you proud.”

Motivation Inspiring Pride Proud Future One Day Goals Grow Up The Glass Child Self Fulfillment

Book:You're Doing Just Fine

Source: You're Doing Just Fine

“When I discovered music — when I discovered the craft of shaping a song — my being fell into place.”

Writing Purpose Music Creativity Identity Musician Singing Singers Songwriters Artists Songs Music Quotes Songwriter Finding Singersongwriter

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“No story is worth telling without the twists and turns. Make them count instead.”

Source: Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“Life did not impress me and I did not impress life. We were two companions who’d been forced together, and we tried to get a long or coexist but communication failed and I was misunderstood, and misunderstood life; until I found art. Or art found me, which it rather feels like because I never sought it, never wished for it, it just showed up one night when I needed it the most and it communicated in a way I finally understood. It spoke to me, sang to me, danced for me, and for the first time I understood and could make myself understood, and that’s when it all changed.”

Life Art Poetry Lost Music Growing Up Dance Dancer Artists Misunderstood

Book:Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

Source: Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“My favorite place in the world is next to you.”

World Love Romance Young Poetry Heaven Inspiring Morning Quote Happy Prose Lit Place Content The Glass Child Litquote Favorite Place

Author: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.”

Love Hurt Youth Prose Free Let Go Heart Break Move On Broken Hearted Prose Poetry The Glass Child Charlotte Eriksson

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“Hurting people you love is the heaviest kind of regret.”

Love Kind Pain Hurt Regret Heavy Regrets Friendships Hurting Heaviest

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“I’m learning persistence and the closing of doors, the way the seasons come and go as I keep walking on these roads, back and forth, to find myself in new time zones, new arms with new phrases and new goals. And it hurts to become, hurts to find out about the poverty and gaps, the widow and the leavers. It hurts to accept that it hurts and it hurts to learn how easy it is for people to not need other people. Or how easy it is to need other people but that you can never build a home in someone’s arms because they will let go one day and you must build your own.”

Source: Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“The sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine.”

Hurt Sadness Sky Tears Sad Anxiety Okay Mental Health Recovery Hopeless Panic Crying Self Destruction Self Harm Panic Attacks Panic Attack Be Okay

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“I will never close my eyes again. I don't want to miss a thing. I will never say no.”

Love Poetry Hurt Awareness Missing Youth Poems Friend

Book:Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

Source: Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“So I died many times that year. In the cold, in the storm, on the run or on the drunk for my heart did not want to beat but kept on beating anyway and my pain was as real as real can be, and I tried to learn and deal and run and feel but nothing really worked. I built a comfortable home in my sorrow and settled into a quiet living. No sparks or grand gestures, just a simple daily hymn to comfort. The leaves fell off the trees and coloured this city in all kinds of pretty, and some days that was enough to make me smile at least a little bit, within.”

Young Hope Hurt Sadness Loneliness Sorrow Heartbreak Memoir Alone

Book:Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

Source: Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.”

“I am not sad anymore. I am not weak or tender or quiet like you remember because the second you said those words and closed that door, I sold my soul to the part of myself I had buried in order to love you, to let you touch every inch of my rotten body, for I wanted to be touchable and not so strange. Not so sad and tender, like I’ve always been, they say, so I changed. And then your glances and words throwing knives with no return about my change of habits and ways of living, being, and I nodded and smiled, dying silently a little bit inside.”

Source: You're Doing Just Fine

“... but I could also write about love. How a hand can silence thousands of voices and how someone’s smell can make you feel at home even though you’re a million miles away from home and have you ever hurt someone you love? Because you’re angry. Because you’re disappointed and sad and you just really wanted to love and be loved in return but life got in the way and you both said things that should never be said and you’re angry but don’t know how to. Because you still feel this strange love for him, but you’re also fucking angry and you want to hit him, but then hug him because hurting him is hurting yourself, and then hit him again because you’re angry! and so you fall on your knees because you’re hopeless to yourself and your own emotions and that’s love, my friend.”

“I used to be fine in my loneliness but something or someone snapped me out of it and showed me company. What it’s like to feel at home, and so the going on by myself part wasn’t as easy anymore. Seasons happened and things got colder and harder and suddenly I found myself smoking circles in the air by myself in the snow and I was not okay.”

Love Hard Home Hurt Company Loneliness Youth Cold Lonely Snow Alone Prose Smoking Myself Songwriter Not Okay Prose Poetry The Glass Child Going On

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“Am I making something worth while? I’m not sure. I write and I sing and I hear words from time to time about my life and choices making ways, into other lives, other hearts, but am I making something worth while? I’m not sure. There was a boy last night who I never spoke to because I was too drunk and still shy, but mostly lonely, and I couldn’t find anything lightly to say, so I simply walked away but still wondered what he did with his life because he didn’t even speak to me or look at me but still made me wonder who he was and I walked away asking Am I making something worth while? I am not sure. I am a complicated person with a simple life and I am the reason for everything that ever happened to me.”

Source: Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“There is no wrong way for reality to play out.”

Reality Happiness Imagination Loss Grief Fate Acceptance Expectations Moving On Predestined

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“I rest in ease, knowing there are others out there, whispering themselves to sleep, just like me.”

Poetry Sleep Like Me Ease Belonging Rest Whispering Others Sleeping Whisper To Sleep

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“It was quite a sad thing, the way I watched you sleep like nothing could go wrong and I did not want to harm it, I did not want to blur it, but how could I not when everything I’ve ever known has slowly gone away.”

Poetry Sleep Sadness Lovers Poem Sad Scared Harm Alone Wrong Afraid Blur Gone Away

Book:You're Doing Just Fine

Source: You're Doing Just Fine

“I can’t sleep alone anymore and I get used to company too quickly. You’re always gone too soon.”

Love Poetry Night Sleep Company Gone Sadness Missing Loneliness Sad Heartbreak Lonely Alone Insomnia I Miss You Miss Can T Sleep Chapbook Too Soon

Book:You're Doing Just Fine

Source: You're Doing Just Fine

“There were days when I still put on make up in case you’d come back, but I wear the same clothes and shower in the rain and eat when I can and sleep when I can, which is rare and not often, 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. I takes a lot to run away.”

Source: Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“That was the winter of learning empty space. Learning a tight pressure around my chest, waiting to explode and break out. But no matter how far you travel or how long you wander, how cold it grows or how drunk you get, the tight pressure just stays in there. You meditate, pray, fast and run, thinking it’s some kind of detoxification process. A stone of toxic memories from all things yesterday and you just need to release it, let go and clean yourself pure. But the stone stays in there. A big, black stone of heaviness. Sadness.”

Left Grief Darkness Loneliness Travel Depression Heartbreak Winter Alone Drunk

Book:He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

Source: He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“The heat finally left space for breathing and crisp air. The trees undressed and coloured the streets and I found myself changing with the season. I so badly wanted to be that force of nature, that fire no one can touch, but I was tired. Tired, tired, tired, of being me and if I had one inch of energy to be something beautiful, I would have, but all I could care about was to make it home before it got dark.”

Dark Darkness Seasons Tired Winter Autumn Depressed Worn Out Get By

Book:Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

Source: Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“I was a flower that bloomed and sparked way too fast. He took me in ’cause I was pretty in all kinds of colors but way too soon I stood on his table sad and dried up. I forgot to nourish myself and the sun never shone from my sky.”

Darkness Sadness Sad Depression Tired Struggles Depressed Ed

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“So I was a stone in the sea. Gravity gave up on keeping me above the surface. I did not try to swim and so I sank to the bottom with no will to turn back. ”I’m tired,” I told him. ”I’m done”. But he wouldn’t let me and he held me up even on his hardest days and he was a lighthouse when all I saw was darkness.”

Love Hope Darkness Sad Depression Hopeless Drowning Saviour Ed

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“We dig holes for ourselves, of comfortable living, and it’s hard to see just how deep down you are until you suddenly want to take a look at the world up there, some fresh air and realise you can’t get up. You’re too far down.”

Darkness Air Sadness Sad Depression Tired Mental Illness Hopeless Depressed Down Journaling Ed

Author:Charlotte Eriksson

“Love is not leaning on each other, adjusting to fit a different size. Love is simply two hands reached out in the darkness, saying; I’ll be your light, if you’ll be mine.”

Love Heart Hands Light Together Beautiful Poetry Dark Darkness Poet Fit Poem Safe Heartbreak Safety Size Belonging Love Quote Poets Saying Adjusting Say Songwriter Reach Mine Each Other

Author: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.”

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