Quotes About Authenticity

I used to pretend that I was just passing through this family on my way to my real one.

It is amazing how you can look in a mirror your whole life and think you are seeing yourself clearly. And then one day, you peel off a filmy gray layer of hypocrisy, and you realize you've never truly seen yourself at all. I

I smile. But like anything you wear that doesn't fit, it pinches.

transgender?" "I like to think about it in terms of handedness," Dr. Powers explains. "If I asked you to sign your name with your nondominant hand, it would feel weird. If I asked you to describe it to me, you'd probably say things like the pen doesn't fit comfortably in my hand; or it's awkward; or I have to try hard to make legible something that I can do with my other hand effortlessly. It feels forced.

I might never be a cover girl, but I was a girl who could cover it all.

Here's what girlfriends do for you: they provide the reality check. They are the ones who tell you when you have spinach between your teeth or when your ass looks fat in a pair of jeans or when you're being a bitch. They tell you, and there's no drama or agenda, like there would be if the message had come from your husband. They tell you the truth because you need to hear it, but it doesn't alter the bond between you.

If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you really have one of your own?

Sometimes all it take to become human again is someone who can see you that way, no matter how you present on the surface.

You are not an impostor," Sam Hallowell told me. "You are not there because of luck, or because you happened to be in the right place at the right moment, or because someone like me had connections. You are there because you are you, and that is a remarkable accomplishment in itself.

The best lies are the ones that are wrapped around a core of truth.

Who we are is about not what we do, but why we tell ourselves we do it.

I wondered what it would be like to not give a damn about what people thought of you.

A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right.

It was possible, Trixie supposed, that everyone had two faces: Some of us did a better job of hiding it than others.

How are you going to know who I am, she finally said, if I dont look like me?

Sometimes all it takes to become human again is someone who can see you that way, no matter how you present on the surface.

When you let people into the inner sanctum of your life, you risk having them see the heart of you.

I've always sort of wondered though: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?

You ought to be attracted to someone for what they've got inside them, not for the package it's presented in.

She was the only one for whom the house didn't have to be cleaned, for whom she didn't have to wear her makeup, and around whom she could say anything without fear of repercussions, or of looking truly stupid.

She had spent her entire life being what everyone wanted her to be. The perfect daughter, the budding artist, the best friend, the first love. She had been so busy meeting everyone's expectations, in fact, that it had taken her years to remember exactly why it was all one big farce. She was not perfect, far from it, and what you saw on the outside was not what you really were getting. Deep down, she was dirty, and this was the kind of thing that happened to girls like her.

she never wore makeup—just those sharp features, take it or leave it.

If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you don't bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.

You know... how it feels to sit at a bar and not be judged- to just have a drink and let it all hang out. Why can't the church be more like that? Why can't you walk in and say, Oh, God, it's just you. Cool. I can be myself now. Not in a way that ignores our sins- but in a way that makes us accountable for them.