Quotes About Authenticity

One thing you have to give up is attaching importance to what people see in you. —JEANNE MOREAU

If you stay true to yourself, you will always remain on track, even if that track takes you off the beaten path, to places you could not possibly imagine.

author Véronique Vienne recalled how she had to work hard to adapt to the mandated cheerfulness of American culture when she moved from France to the States; she practiced her smile in the mirror, trying her best to look like "Miss Congenial ity," before concluding that "in this country, the obligation we feel to conform to exalted standards of happiness can be pure misery.

She is able to draw the line between who she is and who she is not on every level, so she is able to discriminate without ambivalence—whether it's about a skirt or a man that simply isn't right for her life. It also makes it easy for her to ignore the pressure to be all things to all people, and to appreciate the company of herself—with a book, a glass of wine

I wanted to say a lot but wasn't sure where to start; people don't want to hear about how your heart has melted into the dirt under your house.

Wanting to be liked can get in the way of truth.

When parents die, the dream dies, too—the dream that they will see you for who you really are (and, I suppose, the dream that they will ever be the parents you wish for).

He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.

In my writing, I want to be laid bare as a human being.

Write naked. That means to write what you would never say. Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can't waste it. Write in exile, as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail.

Write naked. Write in exile. Write in blood.

Three Rules To Write By Write naked. That means to write what you would never say. Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can't waste it. Write in exile as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail. Denis Johnson

Write the unpublishable...and then publish it.

I've masqueraded as a literary critic, and with a great deal more success, but criticism isn't real—it's not a real thing.

No more pretending for him! He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.

Make this moment the moment of truth about yourself. You have been selling short all of your life.

sometimes we have to find the courage to take off our shoes and feel it all. Even the bad stuff.

For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God? Or am I striving to please people?

Lovely thing about Adam, and why I loved him, was that he was kind to me when it mattered and he had seen a lot too. It's hard to be among vanilla bastards all the time. Normal people can get genuinely upset about a bad haircut, cross words, sick cats. It's hard not to roll your eyes and say the wrong thing.

Things weren't ever what they were supposed to be; they were what they were, and that was the simple truth of it, a truth that didn't change just because you wanted it to.

He was done with every lie he'd ever allowed himself to believe, every lie he'd ever lived, every lie.

Everyone wants to tell you something -anything, everything - about themselves and they just go on and on and on. But when it comes time to show you who they are? Their shit is weak, Nadia. Their shit is lacking. And they just cover it up by talking more, by explaining away what can't be explained away. And then they go on talking more shit about someone else.

A man is the stories he tells about himself, and most of those stories are lies.

A man is the stories he tells about himself, and most of those stories are lies. Never look too closely. If you uncover his lies, it'll humiliate you both. Best to just live with the bullshit.