Quotes About Authenticity

real business of what it meant to live in those time periods came alive for

Wanda and I lock eyes, laughing. "What's so funny?" Will wants to know. "Your face," Wanda says with a wink, and just like that I love her. The world needs an army of Wandas—strong, sarcastic, unafraid women who say what they think and act straightforwardly, without apology or permission. Women who roar instead of flinch. "Hilarious," Will says flatly. "Just bring me a drink, will you?

There wasn't anything simple about them, and I preferred that, and trusted it. My life wasn't simple either.

I close my eyes an lean into Ernest, smelling bourbon and soap, tobacco and damp cotton - and everything about this moment is so sharp and lovely, I do something completely out of character and just let myself have it.

we'd given up trying to fool anyone, even ourselves.

I wasn't raised to acknowledge my own feelings, let alone stick up for myself like that. That's movie dialogue, not real life.

I want to write one true sentence, he said. If I can write one sentence, simple and true, every day, I'll be satisfied.

It turns out that playing it safe, at least in matters of the heart, is the most dangerous thing you can do. By that route, you become a butterfly pinned to the wall, with wonderful colors and all kinds of potential but going nowhere. Your wings are clipped. To really fly you must claim the courage to live out of your real self, the one God called into being.

you can't really love other people well unless you are at home in your own soul. You will simply be too afraid.

It's not how you look, it's how you feel in the dark

The only way to cull the uncommon man from the common is with his clothes off.

Boobs on the make always try to impress with their high level of seriousness (wise guys, with their contempt for all seriousness).

O was infinitely more moving when her body was covered with marks, of whatever kind, if only because these marks made it impossible for her to cheat and immediately proclaimed, the moment they were seen, that anything went as far as she was concerned. For to know this was one thing, but to see the proof of it, and to see the proof constantly renewed, was quite another.

Stop being who you were and become who you are.

We are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to be.

Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.

Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? Stop thinking all the time that you're in the way, that you're bothering the person next to you. If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem

Mas, infelizmente, o que se sente, dia a dia [...] é o homem simples esmagado, diminuído e acomodado, convertido em espectador, dirigido pelo poder dos mitos que forças sociais poderosas criam para ele. Mitos que, voltando-se contra ele, o destroem e aniquilam. É o homem tragicamente assustado, temendo a convivência autêntica e até duvidando de sua possibilidade.

Men and women rarely admit their fear of freedom openly, however, tending rather to camouflage it—sometimes unconsciously—by presenting themselves as defenders of freedom.

The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.

isso de querer ser exatamente aquilo que a gente é ainda vai nos levar além

You never find yourself until you face the truth.

Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then, Life is dull without it.

We danced too wild, and we sang too long, and we hugged too hard, and we kissed too sweet, and howled just as loud as we wanted to howl, because by now we were all old enough to know that what looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.