Quotes About Authenticity

And father said I never wanted this. I'm sick of everyone pretending to be old Dan Beavers in his L. L. Bean moccasins, and his Dubbelwares, and his Japanese bucksaw -- all these fake frontiersmen with their chuck wagons full of Twinkies and Wonderbread and aerosol cheese spread. Get out the Duraflame log and the plastic cracker barrel, Dan, and let's talk self-sufficiency!

All solitary travel offers a sort of special license allowing you to be anyone you want to be

If the Internet were everything it is cracked up to be, we would all stay at home and be brilliantly witty and insightful. Yet with so much contradictory information available, there is more reason to travel than ever before: to look closer, to dig deeper, to sort the authentic from the fake; to verify, to smell, to touch, to taste, to hear and sometimes - importantly - to suffer the effects of this curiosity.

I argued myself into thinking that physical experience is the only reality. I didn't want to be told about this at second hand. I didn't want to look at picture or study it on a small computer screen. I didn't want to be lectured about it. I wanted to be traveling in the middle of it, and for it to be washing over me, as it was today.

Monasticism is not about dogma; it is about God and an authentic spirituality. Its simple truths beckon to be rediscovered.

Be yourself! Be individualistic!' he called out after me. 'But for God's sake get your hair cut. You look like an oddball.

In fact, the thing Lorraine and I liked best about the Pigman was that he didn't go around saying we were cards or jazzy or cool or hip. He said we were delightful . . .

For today we hear seemingly normal people, even those with a level head on their shoulders, blithely speaking of love as though it were some frothy feeling of no real consequence.

I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset - tears are words waiting to be written.

Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.

You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude?

If one day I could get out of here, I would allow myself to be crazy. Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to.

You must be the person you have never had the courage to be. Gradually, you will discover that you are that person, but until you can see this clearly, you must pretend and invent.

I want to continue being crazy; living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be.

If I must be faithful to someone or something, I have, first of all, have to be faithful to myself.

If only everyone could know and live with their inner craziness. Would the world be a worse place for it? No, people would be fairer and happier.

Don't try to be useful. Try to be yourself: that is enough & that makes all the difference.

Love doesn't need to be discussed; it has its own voice and speaks for itself.

We aren't who we want to be. We are what society demands. We are what our parents choose. We don't want to disappoint anyone; we have a great need to be loved. So we smother the best in us. Gradually, the light of our dreams turns into the monster of our nightmares. They become things not done, possibilities not lived.

I am always amazed that so many people are concerned with wanting to be what they are not;What is the point of making yourself look ridiculous? You don't always have to pretend to be strong,there is no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,you shouldn't be concerned about what other people are thinking. Cry if you need to,it's good to cry out all your tears,because only then you will be able to smile again...

Don't allow your wounds to transform you into someone you are not.

I learned something recently: our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.

If you must say yes, say it with an open heart. If you must say no, say it without fear.

He's seeing my soul, my fears, my fragility, my inability to deal with a world which i pretend to master, but about which I know nothing