Quotes About Authenticity

the end of the day, people have to be who they are. If you try to take that from them, you diminish them. You reduce them to children, unable to make decisions for themselves. There's no way to poison your relationship with someone else faster.

You may pretend you are like them. But you are not.

Because nothing cuts through bullshit like a proper fireball.

I'm not stupid. I've got eyes. I see some things everyone else tries to pretend aren't there. This vampire craze sweeping the nation. Why the hell shouldn't there be some genuine vampires in it?

But what kind of wolfhound would I be if I listened to my inner Chihuahua?

But feeling true isn't the same as being true. In fact, feelings don't have very much to do with the truth at all.

Genuine faith will produce genuine changes in your life.

Whatever is true about your heart will show up in your actions.

I seek the substantial in life.

You don't have to become what you already are, which is a relief.

Sitting there on the deck during intermittent periods of dozing I thought that it's really hard on a soul to admit how much of life we have spent being full of shit.

A few weeks ago, passing through my grocer's, I bought a packet of dehydrated French's pork gravy. The label noted that this gravy was award-winning. Since I have never won an award, who am I to question this gravy?

By not letting places be themselves we show our contempt for them. We bury them in sentiment, then suffocate them to death in one way or another. I can ruin both the desert and the Museum of Modern Art in New York by carrying to them an insufferable load of distinctions that disallows actually seeing the flora and fauna or the paintings. Children are usually better at finding mushrooms and arrowheads because they are either ignorant of or unwilling to carry the load.

Here's some simple advice: Always be yourself. Never take yourself to seriously. And beware of advice from experts, pigs, and members of Parliament.

I stopped writing the book that I wanted to write, and wrote the one the book wanted to write.

When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder ... the most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.

That's what real love amounts to- letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending- performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade for a role, you give up your ability to feel and in exchange put up a mask

A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them.

I like a man who wears his soul on his face.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is.

That to me is the way any good romantic would look at his life: Live it first, then write it down before you go.

Truth without love is like surgery without anesthesia. Love without truth is like a cheerleader without a team. But truth in love is medicine. It is meaningful, and it is the only way communication can be effective and cause growth in relationships.