Quotes About Authenticity

A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.

And all the while, I suppose, he thought, real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them ...

She made no answer, and he went on: "What's the use? You gave me my first glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment you asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond human enduring—that's all.

Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!

She longed to be to him something more than a piece of sentient prettiness, a passing diversion to his eye and brain.

Don't let us be like all the others! she protested.

You gave me my first glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment you asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond human enduring--that's all.

Why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape from routine? Why could one never do a natural thing without having to screen it behind a structure of artifice?

The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend.

Why could one never do a natural thing without having to screen it behind a structure of artifice?

Me diste el primer atisbo de una vida verdadera, y al mismo momento me pediste que siguiera con una vida ficticia

La verdadera soledad consiste en vivir entre toda esa gente encantadora que sólo te pide que finjas!

Prin liniÈ™tea ei, din care lipsea orice nuan?? de surpriz?, prin simplitatea ei, izbutea s? înl?ture orice convenÈ›ie, f?cându-l s? înÈ›eleag? cât de firesc era, pentru doi vechi prieteni care aveau s?-È™i spun? atâtea, s? caute s? fie singuri.

I wonder whether he is the real thing, or only the bundle of eccentricities he appears."106

Later I would know some real workers—heavily tattooed, hair worn in ponytails, motorcycle-riding, manga-reading, and pill-popping—and I realized they were as batty as we were, far from the standardized robots of our fantasies. Americans, rich or poor, were a nation of weirdos.

We were losers who talked a winning game. No wonder honesty came to mean for my sister saying only the most damaging things against herself. If she began by admitting defeat, then something was possible: sincerity, perhaps, or at least the avoidance of appearing ludicrous.

I believe no one else can correct our feelings; they are pure, incorrigible.

When I grew up I would always be frank, loving and generous.

If she began by admitting defeat, then something was possible: sincerity, perhaps, or at least the avoidance of appearing ludicrous.

What if I could write about my life exactly as it was? What if I could show it in all its density and tedium and its concealed passion, never divined or expressed, the dull brown geode that eats at itself with quartz teeth?

The celebration of current battles by poets who have not taken part in them has produced some of the emptiest verse that exists.

any book that is any good must be, to some extent, autobiographical, because one cannot and should not fabricate emotions; and although style and narrative are crucial, the bulwark, emotion, is what finally matters.

A San Pablo, como era machito, la iluminación le llegó mientras galopaba camino de Damasco; yo la tuve mientras me desmaquillaba.

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf mean who's afraid of the big bad wolf…who's afraid of living without false illusions