Quotes About Authenticity

I put my bare hand on her bare hand and felt, "This is genuine. There can be no mistake about this.

I am not here. I have no face. Other people have faces [...]. Their world is the real world. The things they lift are heavy. They say Yes, they say No; whereas I shift and change and am seen through in a second. [...] They know what to say if spoken to. They laugh really; they get angry really; while I have to look first and do what other people do when they have done it.

Now then is my chance to find out what is of great importance, and I must be careful, and tell no lies.

To tell the truth about oneself, to discover oneself near at hand, is not easy.

Never pretend that the things you haven't got are not worth having. Never pretend that children, for instance, can be replaced by other things.

The only truth which she could discover was the truth of what she herself felt.

And thus she made it impossible for me to roll out my sonorous phrases about 'elemental feelings,' the 'common stuff of humanity,' 'depths of the human heart,' and all those other phrases which support us in our belief that, however clever we may be on top, we are very serious, very profound and very humane underneath.

Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction—so we are told.

Si no dices la verdad sobre ti mismo, difícilmente podrás decir la de las otras personas.

What one means by integrity, in the case of the novelist, is the conviction that he gives one that this is the truth. Yes, one feels, I should never have thought that this could be so; I have never known people behaving like that. But you have convinced me that so it is, so it happens

Her simplicity fathomed what clever people falsified.

it is a thousand pities never to say what one feels

unless I am myself, I am nobody.

I find myself saying briefly and prosaically that it is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people, I would say, if I knew how to make it sound exalted.

Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt.

There's no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin (at 40) to say something in my own voice; & that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without praise.' (26 July 1922)

He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess – he was a woman.

Well, how was she going to defend herself? Now that she knew what it was, she felt perfectly happy. They thought, or Peter at any rate thought, that she enjoyed imposing herself; liked to have famous people about her; great names; was simply a snob in short. Well, Peter might think so. Richard merely thought it foolish of her to like excitement when she knew it was bad for her heart. It was childish, he thought. And both were quite wrong. What she liked was simply life.

In other words, now that she had rid herself of falsehood, that young woman had only to be herself. Ah, but what is herself? I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know, I do not believe that you know.

Não somos simples, como os nossos amigos gostariam que fôssemos para irmos ao encontro da necessidade que têm de nós. E, no entanto, o amor é simples.

Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas, she thought, waiting to cross, half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she knew (and now the policeman held up his hand) for no one was ever for a second taken in. Oh if she could have had her life over again! she thought, stepping on to the pavement, could have looked even differently!

When I rummage in my own mind I find no noble sentiments about being companions and equals and influencing the world to higher ends. I find myself saying briefly and prosaically that it is much more important to be oneself than anything else.

Finché scrivete ciò che desiderate scrivere, questo è tutto ciò che conta.

Because it is a thousand pities never to say what one feels, he thought...