Quotes About Individuality

The one good thing about being Protestant is that we are not expected to cringe forever in contrition.

If you don't have a clear passion and somebody blithely tells you to go follow your passion, I think you have the right to give that person the middle finger. Because that's like somebody telling you that all you need in order to lose weight is to be thin, or all you need in order to have a great sex life is to be multiorgasmic: That doesn't help!

Anyhow, the golden rule in my family is this: If you're supporting yourself financially and you're not bothering anyone else, then you're free to do whatever you want with your life.

if you dress too much in the style of the moment, it makes you look like a nervous person.

But this is a city that gets born anew in the fresh eyes of every young person who arrives here for the first time. So that city, that place—newly created for my eyes only—will never exist again. It is preserved forever in my memory like an orchid trapped in a paperweight. That city will always be my perfect New York. You can have your perfect New York, and other people can have theirs—but that one will always be mine. —

I did believe that my behavior made me unusual—because it didn't seem to match the behavior of other women—but I didn't

when women are gathered together with no men around, they don't have to be anything in particular; they can just be.

Creative entitlement doesn't mean behaving like a princess, or acting as though the world owes you anything whatsoever. No, creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that—merely by being here—you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own. The

It doesn't have to be perfect, and you don't have to be Plato.

I'm too old to hide who I am, Frank. And I'm too old to be made to feel ashamed of myself by anyone—

it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now

When I was younger, I had wanted to be at the very center of all the action in New York, but I slowly came to realize that there is no one center. The center is everywhere—wherever people are living out their lives. It's a city with a million centers.

don't have to be anything in particular; they can just be.

I did believe that my behavior made me unusual – because it didn't seem to match the behavior of other women – but I didn't believe that it made me bad.

No necesitas el permiso de nadie para llevar una vida creativa.

Ó, édes serdülÅ'kor – amikor a "tehetségeseket" hivatalosan is elkülönítik a hordától, hogy ily módon a néhány kiválasztott lélek gyenge vállaira helyezzék az egész társadalom kreativitással kapcsolatos ábrándjainak terhét, miközben mindenki mást egy sokkal hétköznapibb, inspirációmentes létezésre kárhoztatnak.

Bagavad Gita - drevna indijska knjiga joge - tvrdi da je bolje nesavršeno živeti svoju sudbinu nego savršeno živeti imitaciju ne?ijeg života. Stoga ja sada po?injem da živim svoj život. Naizgled nesavršen i trapav ali tipi?an prikaz mene same.

We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we're so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don't give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won't be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow.

You know, you seem like a completely different person, now that you're with this new boyfriend. You used to look like your husband, but now you look like David. You even dress like him and talk like him. You know how some people look like their dogs? I think maybe you always look like your men.

When I was younger, I had wanted to be at the center of all the action in New York, but I slowly came to realize that there is no one center. The center is everywhere--wherever people are living out their lives. It's a city with a million centers.

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

All of which is to say: You do not need a permission slip from the principal's office to live a creative life. Or if you do worry that you need a permission slip—THERE, I just gave it to you. I

We're all related, after all, so there's going to be some repetition of creative instinct. Everything reminds us of something. But once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours.

that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.