Quotes About Confidence

She's applying her lipstick; I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas.

Deep down, where my boys don't know me, I'm an optimist.

Don't panic. Say, Hey, no problem. Run a hand through your hair like the whiteboys do even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.

The next day at breakfast he asked his mother: Am I ugly? She sighed. Well, hijo, you certainly don't take after me. Dominican parents! You got to love them!

He's really jealous, Ybon said rather weakly. Just have him meet me, Oscar said. I make all boyfriends feel better about themselves.

I'm teaching English in Japan next year," she said matter-of-factly, "It's going to be amazing." Not "I'm thinking about..." or "I've applied but..." I AM.

For the first time I actually feel like I owned my skin, like it was me and I was it.

Any woman who laughs as dope as she does won't ever have trouble finding men.

The best ones not only hold their own when faced with the noise of the world, they silence it.

eres guapa!

Sometimes it really is worth it to look at yourself in the mirror and earnestly ask yourself...#isthatthebestyougot?

Love is not a gamble when your holding all the cards.

Don't be afraid to ask if you're on the right train.

I swallowed hard. Erik thought my body was beautiful, Karin that it was enviable. At random times, people had noted that my hands were beautiful, or my hair. The Twisted Sisters had called my art beautiful. Mom had the best intentions and always told me before and after my laser surgeries that I would be beautiful. But no one had ever said that I was beautiful, all my parts taken together, not just the bits and pieces.

Anyone who's been under someone's thumb can tell you that power, true power, is never about size or looks.

I had never defined myself as beautiful. I'd never be classically beautiful, never be modelesque. But I could see what the people who loved me saw.

I had waited a long time to say those words, and I thought it would be hard to use them, that the claim would be too big for me. Surprisingly, it wasn't. I had grown into the words.

To dream is to starve doubt, feed hope.

That's when it struck me: how gorgeous we all were, even with cellulite (saw a lot of that) and stretch marks, scars and tattoos. Let me just say this, not single body was perfect, not even the fittest of women there.

What would it be like to look in the mirror and actually accept what you see? Not loathe the reflection, or despise it, or be resigned to it? But to like it?

My confidence was of the hothouse variety, carefully cultivated under highly regulated conditions. One wrong look, one mean comment, and my facade would wither.

I didn't have the language to communicate that to this little girl -- or to communicate that beauty -- real everlasting beauty -- lives not on our faces, but in our attitude and our actions. It lives in what we do for ourselves and for others.

I preferred my brand of beauty where Norah was more beautiful than any bimbette, and Mom was beautiful whether sized extra-small or extra-large. Where Peony could look at herself in the mirror and murmur, wow, look at me. Just look at me.

Hao Kan," I said gently, quietly, firmly as if it was a pact between the two of us. She blinked. I wasn't sure if she understood. Or if she believed she was beautiful. So I pointed at her and then to me. And I repeated with utter conviction, "Hao Kan." Those words, my pronouncement, won me the girl's slow nod. I nodded back. And when she smiled, wide and open, I tell you, there was nothing more beautiful that that.