Quotes About Authenticity

All writers start with a layer of truth, don't they? If not, their stories would be nothing but spools of cotton candy, a fleeting taste wrapped around nothing but air.

I used to wonder about the fake pictures that came in frames you buy at the store—ladies with smooth brown hair and show-me smiles, grapefruit-headed babies on their sibling's knees—people who in real life probably were strangers brought together by a talent scout to be a phony family. Maybe it's not so different from real photos, after all.

People are never who they seem to be

You can put a pig in a ball gown, Minka. That doesn't make it a debutante.

If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask...with nothing beneath it?

It is not that she isn't active or that she doesn't eat healthily. It's just how she is made, and if that isn't everyone's standard of perfect, then maybe they just have to revise their damn standard.

I wondered what the hell had convinced me to live at the end of someone else's life rather than live my own

My sister likes to play the victim. We've had some pretty heated exchanges about that before. If you don't want to be seen as a stereotype, then the way I see it, don't be one. But to my sister, that means playing a white man's game, and being who they want her to be, instead of being unapologetically herself.

Everyone comes with a label, it's up to you to peel it off.

Perhaps he'd always known that the truth of a person lies in the heart.

I think it's rude to stick a smile on your face and pretend you like talking to someone when in reality you'd rather be sticking bamboo slivers under your fingernails.

Do you have kids? Anna asks. I laugh. What do you think? It's probably a good thing, she admits. No offense, but you don't exactly look like a parent. That fascinates me. What do parents look like? She seems to think about this. You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he's really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.

Truth vibrates when it's drawn across the bow of pain.

you have to find that rare someone for whom you're not putting on a show. Someone who shines a spotlight in your direction--not because you're who they need you to be, or who they want you to be...just because you're you.

there is such a difference between living the life you are expected to live and living the life you want to live.

You can take the pink hair dye out of the girl, but you never lose those roots. I took another sip of the martini. You don't know me. At the end of the bar, the other customer lifted his face to Peter Jennings and smiled. Maybe, Seven said, but neither do you.

You're not hiding, but you're sitting in a gay bar at dinnertime. You're not hiding, but you're wearing that suit like it's armor.

It's just how she is made, and if that isn't everyone's standard of perfect, then maybe they just have to revise their damn standard.

If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask . . . with nothing beneath it?

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

It's called acting. It's not all that difficult to be the person people expect you to be. It's harder to remember who your really are.

When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.

It would always be a put-on, high school or not, for the whole rest of the world, for the rest of our lives. You couldn't ever guess who someone was by the way they looked because, good or bad, the way they looked was always just a costume or an act. It was Halloween everyday, for most people anyway, just to feel like they weren't alone, to belong, just to keep being happy maybe.

You have to learn to follow your heart. You can't let other people pressure you into being something that you're not. If you want God's favor in your life, you must be the person He made you to be, not the person your boss wants you to be, not even the person your parents or your husband wants you to be. You can't let outside expectations keep you from following your own heart.