Quotes About Authenticity

Manipulation never works to get the result desired, but it always seems like it's just about to work. When you get what you said you wanted by manipulation, it is never enough.

According to Hugh Thomas, author of 'A History of the World', the greatest medical advance in history has been garbage collection. The greatest psychological advance in history is just around the corner and will also have to do with cleaning up. Cleaning up lies and "coming out of the closet" is getting more attention these days. Some day we will look back on these years of suffocation in bullsh*t in the same way we look back on all the years people lived in, and died from, their garbage.

Meaninglessness is of great value. When you finally get that who you actually are is empty and meaningless, it doesn't matter to you whether you are a jerk or not. There is where your power lives.

When the truth changes from your speaking, you know you've spoken the truth.

Integrity, wholeness, at-one-ness, is the opposite of moralism. Having integrity is the opposite of being moral. If one has integrity, one doesn't need morals. People with integrity operate with rules of thumb, not morals.

We are against politeness as a substitute for the truth because that politeness kills. Politeness and diplomacy are responsible for more suffering and death than all the crimes of passion in history. Fuck politeness. Fuck diplomacy. Tell the truth.

Therapy doesn't always work. Sometimes when it does work, it works only for a while and then the person degenerates back to living out of more bullshit - this time about how well therapy worked - and loses whatever relearning occurred.

He embraces the truth. A lot of people talk about the truth, but they don't engage their decision-making around the best truth at the time.

Zna?i sve... On podigne ruke. Sve je bila laž? Mi nismo laž, re?e ona. Nisu moji osje?aji prema tebi. Nije moje ponašanje prema tebi. Ništa što se ti?e nas nikada nije bila laž. Nijedan poljubac. Nijedan zagrljaj. Nijedan osje?aj. Ti nisi volio laž. Ti si volio mene.

Myron stepped toward the light, ignoring the symbolism. "Whatever you're selling," he said, "how do I know you haven't made copies?

when you spend that much time with a person, you get a chance to see the facade slip away sometimes.

part of the human condition is that all decent people think they are phonies and don't belong at some point or another.

The goateed Sandy Duncan bustled over again. He spoke with a French accent that sounded about as real as Pepe LePew's. "Monsieur Zuckermahn?" Norm

There were usually protestors of some sort, but they looked more like actors in a nostalgic revival than genuine revolutionaries.

The ugliest truth is better than the prettiest lie.

Too much is made of "live every moment to its fullest." It is an unrealistic goal, one that leads to more stress than satisfaction. The secret to fulfillment is not about exciting adventures or living out loud—no one can maintain that kind of pace—but in welcoming and even relishing the quiet and familiar.

Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don't be slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees...down with the Ticktockman!

I intend to keep writing stories that piss people off, that tell the particular kind of truth I think is valid, that will make me feel more and more like a Writer of Stature, Which I honestly think I am, really, I mean it, I don't doubt it for a second dammit, so stop giggling! Stories that will make Dr Shedd sniff the air and make Lester smile as je thinks, The kid's coming along all right.

There are forces in the world today, Mr. Winsocki, that are invisibly working to make us all carbon copies of one another. Forces that crush us into molds of each other. You walk down the street and never see anyone's face, really. You sit faceless in a movie, or hidden from sight in a dreary living room watching television. When you pay bills, or car fares or talk to people, they see the job they're doing, but never you.

The only difference, I suppose, between them and me is that I never set out to write shit. (That is: merely sufficient, average.) And of all the crimes that may be attributed to me—numbering among them rudeness, lechery, viciousness, imprudence and disgusting egocentricity—the one that can never be laid on me is the one epitomized by the line, "I just write what they want, by Tuesday, take the money and run.

I can't bear these accounts I read in the Times and elsewhere of these poetry slams, in which various young men and women in various late-spots are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other. The whole thing is judged by an applause meter which is actually not there, but might as well be. This isn't even silly; it is the death of art.

My introduction, implicitly echoing Oscar Wilde's remark that all bad poetry is sincere, grants the benign social decency of [Stephen] King's fictions.

Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

When they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things . . . Atticus, he was real nice. . . ." His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.