Does anyone know this quote and/or where it's from?

“If I were to die tonight I would want to come back as one of your tears. Who wouldn’t want to be conceived in your heart, born in your eye, live on your cheek and die on you lips?”

@virtualist: Hm… I know that’s not how I read it, but that’s about it. Any clue where it’s from?

I heard it first as a French quote.. Je voudrais être une de tes larmes. Né dans tes yeux, vivre sur tes joues et mourir sur tes lèvres.

@poofandmook version 2 no clue on their origins They appear to have become a real standard text message

“If I could come back as anything
It would be as one of your tears.
How could I want more
Than to be conceived in your heart,
Born in your eye,
Live on your cheek,
And die on your lips.”

This quotation is attributed to Shakespeare:

“If I could be any part of you, I’d be your tears.
To be conceived in your heart, born in your eyes, live on your cheeks, and die on your lips.”

@virtualist: That’s it! That’s how I read it… the last one. Now, where did Willy-Boy write it? lol

Midsummer Night’s Dream, isn’t it? Maybe? Crap, it sounds so familiar.

Edit: Nope, not MSD. Did a search on the full text.

Are we certain it is really Shakespeare? My Google-fu leads me to believe it’s misattributed. I searched the MIT site that has the complete works of Shakespeare and came up with nada. Also searched Shakespeare Online.

@MissAnthrope I would believe that. It has that sort of a hallmark greeting – text message – urban legend feel to it.

but it sure is sweet.

Not sure it is Shakespeare. Been searching the plays, most likely first, and I can’t find it. It sounds familiar, but then I read a lot and it might just sound like something I read while I was in the middle of all that English minor Shakespeare. :P I will look more later, got to run to the store now.

Yeah, it really is.. I heard it while in high school in France and it’s stuck with me for many years.

I just tried a search in French and no attribution there, either..

@virtualist: oh, and if it was a text message, it would be like.. “if I could b any part of u I’d be ur tearz. 2 b conceived in ur <3, born in ur eyez, live on ur cheekz, n die on ur lipz.”

lol

@poofandmook im blshng

omg!!11!1!!

This site says “author unknown”. I’m beginning to think it’s one of those anonymous poems/sayings.

Edit: ROFLROFLROFL

Everything I can find says “Origin Unknown.”

I would hope something this banal is unattributable, especially unattributable to Shakespeare. Not that he’s entirely beyond banal, but you know.

@nxknxk: I don’t think I’d call it banal… I think it’s pretty.. and sweet. Overused maybe, but oh well.

@poofandmook: Perhaps I am just prematurely wary of any indications of romance or sentiment. I guess it’s a bad habit.

It was written and first spoken by a Canadian Poet named Shane Koyczan. Look him up in Wiki. Also, http://www.houseofparlance.com/koyczan/index.html I first heard him say those words at a def Poetry Jam session at the University of Miami in 1994 on a Friday night. I will never forget it. This chubby white guy put all the other poets to shame that night and had all the women shocked. He was so great I even purchased a CD he was selling. I wish I would have bought his book that night too. He’s the best.

Well its funny how you can stumble across your work…NEVER POST YOUR STUFF ON THE INTERNET….yeah and I hope that chubby white dude had a copyright cause this one is mine and I wrote it when I was 16. That is the worst fucking slap in the face ever. I’m a romantic poet. I wrote this over ten years ago for my g/f that lived on the other side of the world. She was always crying cause we couldn’t be together…Freaking pisses me off. But hey, I know I wrote it. It’s just the worst feeling in the world to be afraid to publish your stuff and of the very few poems you post on the net they mangle it, screw it up, and take credit for it. Gotta love that. You write your heart out and this shit happens. AND FYI you’re all wrong. The poem is by CM Robbins. This is the original stanza…the telephone game added the conceived in your heart and mangled the rest. My style of writing goes against all the rules and I’ve always gotten crap for it.

Please do not cry my dear
Our love is the rock that no weathered force can alter.
For I wish that I were one of your tears;
To be born in your eye,
Live on your cheek,
And die at your lips.

Sorry TonyG and FableEros, Koyczan, or you, may well have come up with that quote independently, but I first heard it in the late 1970s by a French Canadian teenage girl who claimed to have written it herself. Une larme. Elle est nee dans l’oeil, elle vit sur la joue, et elle meurt sur les levres. (A tear. It is born in the eye, it lives on the cheek, and dies on the lips)