Quotes About Authenticity

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.

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

I could no longer participate in an exchange requiring acrobatics of self-denial.

There are two ways to worry words. One is hoping for the greatest possible beauty in what is created. The other is to tell the truth.

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.

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think." June Jordan

Leadership can't be fabricated. If it is fabricated and rehearsed, you can't fool the guys in the locker room. So when you talk about leadership, it comes with performance. Leadership comes with consistency.

The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.

Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him.

Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, and the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either.

Every time someone gives you a formula for what you should be and what you should do, you should know they're giving you a pair of handcuffs.

But you know exactly what kind of world we live in. It ain't no fucking Middle-earth.

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

Dude wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his light saber or a Lensman her lens. Couldn't have passed for Normal if he'd wanted to

Ana Obregón, unlike every other girl in his secret cosmology, he actually fell for as they were getting to know each other. Because her appearance in his life was sudden, because she'd come in under his radar, he didn't have time to raise his usual wall of nonsense or level some wild-ass expectations her way.

I doubt that I can speak for all Dominican men but I doubt they can either.

It was what you did, Wolgast understood; you started to tell a story about who you were, and soon enough the lies were all you had and you became that person.

soon enough the lies were all you had and you became that person.

I'm not a guy who curses very much in my personal life. When I curse it sounds like a kid trying to be cool. But I think there are quite a few people, my father being one of them, who use curse words rather eloquently.

I needed freedom to really express myself. That's really what Justified is about.

Let the glossy spreads have their heart-stopping, head-turning kind of beauty. Give me the heart-filling beauty instead.

I had always felt a foreigner in this made-up Land of Beautiful, and it was a relief to see Extreme Beauty for what it really was: fake, make-believe, insubstantial.

Jacob narrowed his eyes at me, seeing me clearly without my two-faced mask, both sides made up — one with cosmetics, the other with lies.

Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.