Quotes About Authenticity

At that moment they ceased being human beings and began to be human doings.

They are descriptions of what real life looks like, not prescriptions for how to get life.

Were they—were all of them, Alice too?—so sophisticated, so counterfeit in their emotions, that they operated one or two steps removed from the substance of things?

The more you try to be like someone else, the more you find yourself standing in the way.

I know now that when the loving, honest moment comes it should be seized, and spoken, because it may never come again. And unvoiced, unmoving, unlived in the things we declare form heart to heart, those true and real feelings wither and crumble in the remembering hand that tries too late to reach for them.

Gimme an honest frown over a false smile, any day.

The man grinned back at me with that perfect sincerity we fear and call simple-minded.

But sometimes, being silent is the only way to tell the truth.

You can only ever be yourself. The more you try to be like someone else, the more you find yourself standing in the way.

It was as if all of those hundreds of people were costumed for home, for themselves, not for the public promenades.

Prison pulls the masks away from men. You can't hide what you are, in prison. You can't pretend to be tough. You are, or you're not, and everyone knows it.

I tried to sound confident and strong, but there are some lies that the body just won't believe, and the words came out as a squeak.

Suffering is the truth. Not suffering is the lie. I told you that, once before. That's just the way the world is.

The truth is a bully we all pretend to like. I

Men lie, to themselves more than to others, and to the others more often than they tell the truth.

Prabaker had just then decided to like me, and for him that meant he was bound to a scrupulous and literal honesty in everything he said or did. It was at once his most endearing and most irritating quality, that he always told me the whole of the truth.

Then you said, The truth is a bully we all pretend to like.

What we tell, is rarely what we do.

Compassion's a very strange thing. It comes from deep inside. People know it when they see it, because you can't fake it. I know. I've tried. I was terrible at it. I got sick, when I tried. I had to go back to being a genuine, uncaring cunt, just to get well again. It's genuine, see, even being an uncaring cunt, and I'm drawn to genuine things, even if I don't like them.

The truth is a bully we all pretend to like/

Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.

The overdressed traveler betrays more interest in being seen than in seeing, while the true traveler knows that the novel world about her serves as the most appropriate accessory.

Your transparency is just another one of your disguises, isn't it?

Are you an aberration to your species?' she cried. 'Cats don't look for approval!