Quotes About Authenticity

I think readers appreciate those of us who stay in the trenches and fight the good fight even when times get tough. I know that I, personally, lost respect for writers who, when there was a downturn in the market, started shouting from the rooftops that they wrote thrillers and suspense novels rather than horror. As far as I'm concerned, those wussboys should sever all ties with the horror community if that's the way they feel and get out of the way so real horror writers can do their work.

I don't mind suffering as long as it's really about something. I don't mind great luck, if it's about something. If it's the hollow stuff, then there's no gift, one way or the other.

Full-time, not a semi-mer like me.

I was trying to break out of the suburbs, and when I did break out, I don't think I took my whole self with me - I think I played a role of being too cool and hip.

I mean, I think about it, but I don't design my record to get a certain public response.

It was true: I was starting to hate girls. Not that I was into the machismo of being a "manly-man." It was just that, for boys, there seemed to be more options available: there were more ways to be a boy and still be accepted, whereas the popular girls all appeared to be cut from the same cloth. Or they were clones or something.

When you finally do fall in love, don't you dare be smug about it. In

Yes, romance novels are extreme. The situations are turned up to eleven and everyone is beautiful without dieting or exercise and the sex is always amazing, but when I strip all that away what I get is that all of this"—Sasha motions to everything around us, and I'm assuming she means the world and our existence and not this particular Mexican restaurant—"that all of this is nothing without love.

love is not reasonable or measured. It undoes you. It's in the imperfections in each other, in ourselves, where we find our humanity. It's in our dents and scars where the deepest connections are made. Real love resides in the parts of me I think no one wants to see.

I play the "Guess Who's on a First Date" game. Which ninety-seven-pound girl is eating her weight in pasta, thinking the best way to ensnare a man is by acting like you're an effortlessly sexy robot who doesn't sweat, poop, diet, or nag?

I want to ask him if he thinks I can get used to being seen like this, being loved like this. I want to ask him why I can be myself around him. Why I still belong to myself around him.

What is more important than the name is that people know that I really like acting, I enjoy it and I want people to know that I am serious. The name thing: I will always be L.L. Cool J.

Love is the dominant force, and in its light there is no deception.

There are no shadows in which deceptions can be born, no dance of appearances:

All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.

[To Dan Quayle:] Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.

A talent for truth is real property. If a man loves truth better than things, people like to be around where he is. Almost everybody wishes he could be honest, but you can't have the spirit of truth when your heart is set on dickering for things.

The speaking in perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love.

I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defense of it.

What do you believe is worse? Living life alone, lacking in popularity or changing yourself to be accepted by others? I think the latter is worse, and I believe it is much more important to think for yourself than to allow others to control you with their opinions. I think it's a sign of weakness to allow others to think for you just to be accepted.

If you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth.

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he's only trying on one face after another till he finds his own.

What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn!