Quotes About Authenticity

Where TV lets you down, I'm discovering, is by not convincing you how things really work in the world. Like, do buses stop anywhere along the road, to pick up any kind of asshole, or do you have to be at a regular bus stop?

Some people's elegance was only skin-deep, scrape off a little bit of the veneer and you got the real wood—common

Why do I always want to appear more clever than I really am when Nora is anywhere about? Am much distressed at this discovery, as I have just read an article in this morning's paper saying that intellectual snobbery is snobbery in its worst form.)

Someday, she was convinced, somebody would find out that she was an imposter in the adult world.

Wherever Paula went she made friends and gathered information—she was interested in everything and everybody, and her interest drew people toward her and opened their hearts. Her manner was always natural and sincere, and it rarely failed to evoke a natural and sincere response—she was never patronizing, never gushing, never subservient, she was always herself.

If strangers see you behaving like lunatics, it doesn't matter, because they don't know who you are. And if your friends see you behaving like lunatics, it doesn't matter, because they know who you are.

I can't be doing with people that are not exactly what they seem.' Mamie was

No, she was not like other people. Other people took grown-up things as a matter of course—things like late dinner, and wine, driving cars and going to the theater; things like marriage and housekeeping and ordering commodities from the shops; whereas she was just playing at it all the time, pretending to be grown up, when, really and truly all the time, she was just Barbara—a plain, gawky child. She had the same body

There were compensations in poverty—so she discovered. You could talk to your neighbours and take part in their lives, and she found them more interesting than the people she met in the upper circles of society. They were real, and you were real. You could lend a hand when they were in trouble. . . . Another great advantage of being poor was that you had no servant worries, your home was your own and there was no need to bother your head about what the servants would think.

In most gatherings people blend into one another—they are dressed in the same fashion and their faces wear the same sort of "party look"—but these people were so strong and rugged in personality that they always remained themselves no matter where they were or what they were doing. Presently,

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.

If you work hard doing the wrong job, is it really work? Or is it some kind of fakery?

I don't believe in trying to be somebody you're not - just be a bigger, better version of yourself.

When I'm not working, I want to be the version of the person that I was born to be. I was born with curly hair. It fits my personality, and it's totally who I am. I am rough around the edges, and I am not a polished girl.

I think actors go along a continuum from Simon Callow down to kind of Ross Kemp, and I like to think of myself as the Ross Kemp of comedy. He's very good in 'East Enders' because he plays a version of himself. I think I can play a version of myself - that's about all I can do.

As a black woman who grows up in a predominantly white neighborhood, you learn how to perform a 'good' version of yourself. And then when you're with your home girls, you're saying all kinds of stuff that sounds all kinds of crazy, but you understand each other because you're speaking the way that you're comfortable with.

I watch people, friends of mine, and see how they portray themselves online and I find interesting that it's kind of a hyper-real version of yourself, how you'd like to be seen, in a way.

My version of lip-synching is singing full-out with the track.

In 2008, while the film version of my book 'Choke' was coming to market, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. That meant that I had to appear in public to promote a comedy about a son trying to save his dying mother - the plot of Choke - while privately I was caring for my own dying mother. It was torture.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

The most important thing you can do as a performer is to be yourself, or be an onstage version of yourself. If you're not being true to yourself, and somebody likes that other version of you, you're kind of stuck.

With a lot of shows, what you'll see happen is they start off really well, and they're very original, but they become sort of a version of themselves. They stand outside the show... they become a cliche of the show they once were. That's the whole 'jumping the shark' thing.