Quotes About Authenticity

Glory be to those humans that are absolutely NOTHING for the opinions of other humans: they are the true owners of illusions, transformations, and themselves." NYC in 1979

Glory be to those humans that are absolutely NOTHING for the opinions of other humans: they are the true owners of illusions, transformations, and themselves.

glory be to those humans who are absolutely NOTHING for the opinions of other humans: they are the true owners of illusions, transformations and themselves

You are only able to love in the first place if you love yourself, if you believe in yourself, if you know yourself. Only then can you approach the other.… Love can only come if you are clear about who you are.

It's hard to explain how this works, and I admit that it's fairly implausible or untenable as a way of life, but that seems to be how I go about my days: peaceably in person, fiercely on paper.

Doris Lessing: You only begin to discover the difference between what you really are, your real self, and your appearance when you get a bit older...a whole dimension of life suddenly slides away and you realize that what in fact you've been using to get attention has been what you look like...it really is a most salutary and fascinating thing to go through, shedding it all.

Ever since childhood, I've felt a tension between who I think I should be-- smarter, more confident, more creative, more adventurous, more out going- and who I am: quiet, introspective, sensitive, and solitary. If I could only be better, I think- a better wife, a better mother, a better writer, a better human- then I would feel more sure of myself and more worthy. More deserving of life.

How easy it is to miss the gift of who we are, because we're so busy trying to become somebody else. Maybe all I really need to do- all anyone needs to do- is trust in what we love and continue to do that.

My real task is not to try to reinvent myself or to transcend my life after all, but to inhabit it more fully, to appreciate it, and to thoughtfully tend whats already here. .. embracing and welcoming the person I actually am and quietly making the contribution I have to offer- whether its a manuscript page or an email to my old next-door neighbor. What matters is not the grandness of the gesture, but its source. If I do my work, all of it, with love, then it is worthy.

As time goes on, I find myself caring less about fitting in, and more about nurturing those relationships that fit who I truly am.

sitting in church doesn't make me a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes me a car

We have to just let go, expose ourselves, let someone else see who and what we really are. At least one other person.

One is what one is, and the dishonesty of hiding behind a degree, or a title, or any manner and collection of words, is still exactly that: dishonest.

Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.

people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by – as they might in a store window – and that such a display needn't be taken so seriously

But Ruth and Tommy never did anything gross in front of people, and if sometimes they cuddled or whatever, it felt like they were genuinely doing it for each other, not for an audience.

Because you know how lousy it feels, people telling you how perfect things will be and they're not being straight.

that people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by – as they might in a store window – and that such a display needn't be taken so seriously once the moment had passed.

The smart kids think I have no shape. But I do. I'm just keeping it hidden. Because who wants them to see?

Josie just says what she thinks. Doesn't care if she says the wrong thing. That gets irritating sometimes but I love her for it.

I'd begun to understand also that this wasn't a trait peculiar just to Josie; that people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by – as they might in a store window – and that such a display needn't be taken so seriously once the moment had passed.

Since each of us was copied at some point from a normal person, there must be, for each of us, somewhere out there, a model getting on with his or her life.

Tendrás que descifrar su corazón, aprender todo de él, o jamás conseguirás convertirte en la verdadera Josie.

Why, Mr. Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?