Quotes About Authenticity

Did Dolezal really fool those black folks around her? I have a strange feeling she didn't, that many simply humored her. You have to do this with white people, from time to time.

Beauty is about perception, not about make-up. I think the beginning of all beauty is knowing and liking oneself. You can't put on make-up, or dress yourself, or do you hair with any sort of fun or joy if you're doing it from a position of correction.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.

Sot genjeshtra mbulon te verteten kur ne pozit te ulet ndodhet. Pamja bie me shume ne sy kurse brendesia nuk kerkohet.

Recognizing who you are is not the subtext of a life. It's the main point.

If it looks good, you'll see it. If it sounds good, you'll hear it. If its marketed right, you'll buy it. But... If its real... you'll feel it.

I feel strangely free at such times. To behave properly is to be always courteous, always clever, and subtle and elegant. But now, when I am so alone, I do not have to be any of these things. For this moment, I am wholly myself, unshaped by the needs of others, by their dreams or expectations or sensibilities. But I am also lonely. With no one to shape me, who stands here, watching the moon, or the stars, or the clouds?

Reon Atescre of Sona Nyl had been slim and laughing-eyed, a lighthearted, fearless man who was not attracted to women, seeing her for what she was and not what he wanted her to be, and therefore an easy companion to her.

How pure your longing to be anything other than yourself.

Practically all the relationships I know are based on a foundation of lies and mutually accepted delusion.

The only really good performance is the one where you make yourself vulnerable, while pushing beyond your familiar comfort zone.

For me performing has a lot to do with being fearless. I wrote an article for Artforum in the mideighties that had a line in it that the rock critic Greil Marcus quoted a lot: "People pay money to see others believe in themselves." Meaning, the higher the chance you can fall down in public, the more value the culture places on what you do. Unlike, say, a writer or a painter, when you're onstage you can't hide from other people, or from yourself either.

Back then, and even now, I wonder: Am I "empowered"? If you have to hide your hypersensitivity, are you really a "strong woman"? Sometimes another voice enters my head, shooing these thoughts aside. This one tells me that the only really good performance is one where you make yourself vulnerable while pushing beyond your familiar comfort zone. I liken it to having an intense, hyper-real dream, where you step off a cliff but don't fall to your death.

Today, when I think back on the early days and months of Thurston's and my relationship, I wonder whether you can truly love, or be loved back, by someone who hides who they are.

I've always felt uncomfortable giving people what they want or expect.

but I couldn't decide if I was a courageous person in real life or whether I could only sing onstage. In that way I haven't changed much in thirty years at all.

Eu nunca quis ser qualquer coisa, exceto quem eu era.

that's why for me the page, the gallery, and the stage became the only places my emotions could be expressed and acted out comfortably. These were the venues where I could exhibit sexuality, anger, a lack of concern for what people thought.

Neil Young once said that it's more about having an authentic voice than a good voice, though of course Neil has a great voice.

if you have to hide your hypersensitivity, are you really a "strong woman"?

I wonder whether you can truly love, or be loved back, by someone who hides who they are.

Always play your decoy hand so people won't get the chance to see you fail at that which is closest to your heart.