Quotes About Authenticity

People are attracted to authentic beauty that has a human rather than mannequin quality.

People are human beings, not commercial transactions.

Perfect people are annoying and off-putting. We connect with people through their cracks. It's what makes them human and, ultimately, attractive.

Sweeping and dramatic changes make for good theater, but in real life, they're not effective.

We're genetically pulled to people who radiate warmth, honesty and compassion. We're repelled by external presentations of perfection…The perfection of others makes us feel inadequate.

When a person reaches a certain age, there are many things he or she can feign: happiness is not one of them -- Jorge Luis Borges

Be true to yourself" - Ven Zallow

Afternoon tea needn't stand on ceremony. Anything that becomes more important than sweet fellowship, whether lace or linen or the china itself, is pretense. How much more we enjoy life when the pretenses are discarded!

I am neither for conformity nor non-conformity. I am for individuality. If one's individuality is in effect non-conformity, then so be it. But basically, one's individuality consists of conformity--to one's self.

True stories are full of holes. Life isn't a smooth freeway across a fruited plain. Life is a winding, pot-holed road, slick with oil, and studded with broken glass. It was one of Steve's laws. If a witness' testimony is too damn good, if there are no loose ends or contradictions, chances are his story is as phony as Donald Trump's hair.

Success is how other people judge you," he said. "Are you driving that Ferrari, buying that house in Aspen? Excellence can't be measured in dollars. Ideals don't fit into a bank account. It's about judging yourself. Have you lived up to your principles or have you sold out?

I don't tweet or blog or order pizza with arugula on top. So, yeah, call me old school.

Magna est veritas. Great is truth.

Me? I'm a mocker!

And just getting into bed with somebody wasn't the magic solution, because people could hide their terrors in pure technique—depersonalizing so completely the body embraced that they felt nothing at all.

When you finally come out, there's a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter how much you lose or how bad you die.

And thus I wonder about so many gay men I've met since, pillars of the community, out to everyone else but Mom, who still refer to their lovers as something between a roommate and a valet. Just who is being protected here, and who thinks queer is wrong?

Being different was about something more than just our dicks.

When you finally come out, there's a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter how much you lose or how bad you die.

That would be my theme, I thought: once I came out, the world was all windows.

What Richard wants is what I want, what everyone in the world wants. To be accepted, to be loved for who we are, not for some playacting phony version of ourselves.

Feelings are best handled by expressing them, and worst handled by denying them, by pretending they don't exist.

Whenever I become too busy, too impatient, and too cynical in my daily living, I stop and remember to listen and feel for my heart. I attend to it before it has to demand my attention by gripping me by my chest. During business meetings, on airplanes, or standing in a long, slow line, I place my index finger and thumb together on my left hand and feel the energetic thumping of my heart's code that reminds me to lead life and not be led by it.

Motto: true to myself, false to others (excepting one person).