Quotes About Self-acceptance

The hardest part has been learning how to take myself seriously when the entire world is constantly telling me that femininity is always inferior to masculinity

In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female- or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self.

Sometimes we do that to ourselves -- we pit our desires against one another. We insist unnecessarily on seeing one aspect of our personality as being at odds with the rest of ourselves.

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive." —Audre Lorde

I don't have anything to prove anymore. I don't have a record deal, no one has any expectations, I'm in a position of freedom. I don't need anyone's approval.

I'm more contented and at peace with myself now than I was as a box-office queen. I'm less uptight. I've even reached a stage where it doesn't shatter me if somebody prints something bad about me.

I would be a fool to deny my own abilities.

But I'm no hero. I had to keep my dirty little secret. The worst sin I committed was holding it in; letting the secret blacken me.

But she never just accepted me for the way I was.

And it's more. It's about getting past that question of whats wrong with me, to knowing there's nothing wrong, that you were born this way. You're a normal person and a beautiful person and you should be proud of who you are. You deserve to live and live with dignity and show people your pride.

They didn't guarantee you'd come out a whole person.

Big women do themselves a disservice when they attempt to become the Righteous Fat (the Righteous Thin are bad enough, all that running around and sweating, somehow believing it means anything).

The truth of the matter is, beauty is a specific thing, rare and fleeting. Some of us have it in our teens, 20s and 30s and then lose it most of us have it not at all. And that's perfectly okay. But lying to yourself that you have it when you don't seems to me simple-minded at best and psychotic at worst.

It turns out, after a lot of exploration, that I'm not really a princess. A swell gal, sure, but not a princess.

How hurtful it can be to deny one's true self and live a life of lies just to appease others.

To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.

Sure enough, we have plenty of exposure to white everything so why would we opt to remain our African/Asian/Mexican selves? The answer is that suicide is absolute, and if you think you will survive by hiding who you really are, you are sadly misled: There is no such thing as partial or intermittent suicide. You can only survive if you--who you really are--do survive.

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 squares on your abdomen have been reabsorbed, like tiny islands in a rising sea of lard.

Justina Chen

because she was scared of what people in the Land of Beautiful might say or think about her face. Let them say what they want. Leave Terra Bella to the shallow, and claim the world for your own. The entire world, that's what I wanted. I wanted to travel it, experience it, revel in it. Abraham Ortelius made history in 1570 with his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the Theatre of the World, the first modern atlas of Earth as was known and catalogued at that moment.

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.

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?