Five life-changing quotes that fuelled my writing journey.

From dreaming to doing

‘We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one.’ Confucius

One evening five years ago, after wrangling the kids to bed and wrapping up the day’s chores, after sending a work email and catching up on the family WhatsApp, after checking in with my husband and negotiating something to ignore on Netflix, I sank into the sofa to unwind. Then, I started to doom scroll.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

As I scanned social media, ignoring my FOMO while studiously not liking anything, this quote popped up. I must’ve come across it before and not thought too deeply about it. I have a book of Confucius quotes tucked away on the shelf, picked up on the Southbank years ago.

But, as they say, the words you need to hear find you at the precise moment you’re ready to listen. And let me tell you, that was the moment...

I needed to listen.

When something speaks profoundly of the human condition, it transcends time, resonating as deeply now as it did centuries ago. It strikes me as both absurd and yet entirely reasonable that these words still hold truth, millennia after they were written.

The quote made me confront a truth I’d been avoiding: the deep well of discontent inside me existed because I’d been living as though I had endless lives ahead of me.

I’d lived as if each new decade wipes the slate clean, erasing the past and offering a fresh, unburdened start.

But life doesn’t work that way.

As we grow older, gain a little wisdom and a lot of experience, we begin to understand that the choices we make leave indelible marks on out minds as well as our bodies.

Every decision, every action, every choice I’ve made in the past has created the life I have now. Every decision, action and choice I make now will shape my future.

My first life had been lived in a haze of ignorance, in the pursuit of instantaneous gratification, keeping busy, doing ‘things’. I’d moved away from the more contemplative appreciation of literature, music, life that brought me joy. That moment marked the beginning of my second life: an intentional life, one where I confronted that discontent and chose to change.

Over the months that followed, I examined every corner of my life. I began to let go of things that drained my energy and sapped my soul, creating space for something new. At the time, I had no idea what that ‘something’ would be. But as I began journaling, a dream emerged from the depths of my teenage years.

The dream of being a writer.

That moment of clarity, sparked by a single quote, set me on a path of rediscovery. It was the beginning of a journey that led me to writing my first novel.

‘To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing it’s best to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.’ E.E. Cummings

This thought has been stuck on my fridge in multiple houses, across decades and cities, but like so many things in life, it had faded into the background, overshadowed by time.

With the responsibilities of mid-life, ‘being yourself’ can feel like a distant dream. There’s no room for it when your days are consumed by schedules, chores, and the care of others. You’re too exhausted to think beyond the roles you inhabit.

But before all that, I used to be fiercely myself.

In my teens and twenties, I fought battles to assert my identity, to carve out a space in the world that felt authentically mine. As a British Asian, I’ve always walked an invisible tightrope between two cultures, and I’ve never wanted to shape-shift between them. I didn’t want to adjust or contort myself to fit other people’s expectations.

And then life crept in.

Slowly, imperceptibly, the world boxed me in, hemming me into roles and expectations until I could no longer recognise the person I once was.

The turning point came when I started to give myself time to think, time to breathe and these words hit me with renewed force. I realised that I needed to reclaim the version of me that I’d lost sight of.

And in that moment, I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life living on autopilot.

Now, once again, the battle to be myself doesn’t feel hard. I’ve reached a place where other’s opinions don’t hold power over me. I’ve stopped apologising for who I am and the space I take up. I’ve stopped worrying about what other people will say.

I’m back out of the box and it feels good.

Photo by Diana Parkhouse on Unsplash

‘There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.’ – Maya Angelou

‘Write what should not be forgotten.’ – Isabel Allende

My novel didn’t so much appear out of nowhere as erupt from within me, a story that had been brewing for years. When I wrote the first words, it felt as though the characters had always been there, absorbed through my experiences, lived through my family’s struggles, learned through generations of immigrants.

The story emerged, raw and insistent, as if my very existence had been preparing me to tell it.

I began writing in stolen moments, at 5 a.m. before work, in the car during my children’s sports practices, noting down ideas on my phone while pedalling in spin class. I spent my school holidays (the luxury of being a teacher) pouring out this story, consumed in the telling. Words spilled out of me as though they’d been waiting all my life for this version of me, the one who could bear witness.

But the truth is, this story didn’t come from nowhere.

It was shaped by the shifts in our collective consciousness that have taken place over the last five years: the Black Lives Matter movement, conversations about identity and race taking place in mainstream media, friends asking me about experiences which I’d never shared, the testimony of an Asian cricketer speaking out against systemic abuse, and countless others who dared to share their truths.

It came from memories of growing up with racism in 1970s and 80s Britain, enduring microaggressions and slurs. It was built from the realisation that I, like so many others, had internalised those experiences. I thought of my own children, who I had sheltered from the sacrifices and struggles of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

I was motivated to write the first words by a question posed by the British Sikh writer Sunjeev Sahota in an interview…

Why are there so few British Sikh women writing fiction? (I’ll share my thoughts on this in another article)

That’s when I came across Angelou and Allende’s quotes and I understood my overwhelming need to write.

This wasn’t just my story. It was the story of all the South Asian immigrants who came to the UK in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Of the Indians who grew up under colonialism and found their homeland split by Partition.

It was the story of those who endured indignities and injustices so that I can have a voice. And it was a story for the future, for the next generation.

This story isn’t just mine, it is theirs, and it is all of ours.

Photo by Laura Vinck on Unsplash

‘At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.’ Goethe

Kyoto, 1999. I was a backpacking alone across Japan and had fallen in with a group of travellers at a guest house. An American with a bowl haircut that could rival a 13th-century monk, an Australian woman with pale pink dreadlocks down her back, and a Frenchman whose demeanour practically redefined the word ‘swathe.’

We hitchhiked together, staying with families we met along the way, sharing stories late into the night. It was the Frenchman who shared this quote, which had set his trip around the world in motion.

Of course, being a Philosophy postgraduate, I nodded along, pretending I had a deep understanding of Goethe’s entire body of work. Spoiler: I hadn’t even heard of him.

But those words lodged themselves somewhere deep within me. After I returned home, I couldn’t shake them. I went to the library, found the full quote, copied it down, and tucked it away like a talisman. Over the years, I shared it with friends, and it became a source of courage, pulled out before my many leaps of faith.

Fast-forward to now.

When I finished the first draft of my novel, I thought the hard part was over.

How naive I was.

As I started to learn what it actually takes to become a traditionally published author (understanding what literary agents do and the querying process) my confidence wavered.

The odds are stacked against me. Only a tiny percentage of aspiring writers ever get signed, and even fewer get published.

My doubts mounted.

How could I, a middle-aged mum who hadn’t written a word of fiction since having a poem published in a zine (aptly named The Zine) at fourteen, imagine that I could publish a novel?

But then I thought of Kyoto. I thought of all the times in my life when I’d chosen boldness, when I’d stepped into the unknown despite the fear.

The universe conspires, but only when we first take that step, when we show up and say, ‘I’m in.’

Writing this book was my leap. Querying agents is another. And as daunting as it feels, I’ve decided to believe that my boldness will be met.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this: the universe rewards those who dare to commit… and as Goethe also said, ‘Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.’

Want to read more? Here’s one from the archives Breaking the Gates - Searching for Belonging

Do any of these quotes resonate with you? Are there any life-changing quotes that you can share?

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