Quotes About Authenticity

The truth is often painful

How many lived in the fake versions of their countries, in fake versions of other people's countries? Did their lives feel as unreal to them as his own did to him?

He tried to keep on the right side of power, tried to be loyal to so many things that he himself couldn't tell which one of his selves was the authentic, if any.

It's not enough to be honest and loyal, frankly it doesn't matter if you are not, so long as you are perceived to be so.

This is the splendid and memorable wisdom of legendary sage Howard Thurman, who once advised someone seeking vocational guidance, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive" (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, [New York: Crossroad, xv]). Yielding to your sacred inner flame is your best offering to the world.

Q&As covered my fave color (purple), my fave shows (Family Ties and Cosby), my height (5? 7?), weight (130 pounds) and eye color (hazel). They also printed false information. One said my parents were a psychologist and a newspaper reporter. Sure, my television parents held those careers—my real parents were a math/P.E. teacher and a housewife/manager (of me). I was supposed to be the coolest kid on the planet, but no one knew what a dork I was.

I'm not out here to win a beauty contest.

I don't think success has changed us as people at all. We are the same lunatics that we were when this band first got going. We never see ourselves as being on a higher level than our fans.

I'm talking about allowing others to see you as you truly are, embracing them in all of their imperfections without fear, and remaining true to them come what may. I'm talking about connections that run so deep, it no longer matters where you end and they begin. Some find it in marital love, others in friendship. Both are worth risking.

Stop putting people in boxes of Manly or Lady Like. Let people be themselves.

Until they get to know the real you, people's stereotypes don't mean much.

To attract boyfriends, American girls pretend they are women, while Japanese women pretend they are girls.

What I'm looking for is a blessing that's not in disguise.

One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.

Truth is neither ojectivity nor the balanced view; truth is a selfless subjectivity.

The children imitating the cormorants, Are more wonderful Than the real cormorants

When I was young, my mindset was image, image, image. I took that approach with the media. As I became more experienced I realized: No matter what, people are going to like you or not like you. So be authentic, and let them like you or not for who you actually are.

Love strips the mask from each of us, and we must endeavor for those we love to put the mask on so that it can be taken off again. For if there is no mask to start with, there is no pleasure in removing it.

First make yourself unpopular, then people will take you seriously.

The truth about an animal is far more exciting and altogether more beautiful than all the myths woven about it.

When you point out to him the palpable absurdity of some false action he has taken he is more than willing to cut it. But what can he do if his own feelings are not able to convince him? Who will guarantee that, having rid himself of one lie, another will not immediately take its place? A grain of truth must be planted under the falsehood, eventually to supplant it, as a child's second set of teeth pushes out the first.

Whereas mechanical acting makes use of worked-out stencils to replace real feelings, over-acting takes the first general human conventions that come along and uses them without even sharpening or preparing them for the stage. What happened to you is understandable and excusable in a beginner. But be careful in the future, because amateurish over-acting grows into the worst kind of mechanical acting.

By the same token, I think it's time that we allow ourselves to experience real anger as women. And I don't mean that passive aggressive dance that we've employed for too many years. It's not real anger if it is implied or a few degrees removed, if it takes the form of whispering, or cold shoulders, or silent treatment. Real anger is what popular culture would have us be afraid of, based on the fact that it is not courteous, elegant, or feminine.

Me? I'm just a literary girl gone wrong. Slow with the tongue. Quick with the pen. Undeniably cute. But, on the whole, ill-equipped for the privilege of living.