Quotes About Authenticity

How can you write if you can't cry?

I do not believe in organized religion, herbal remedies, yoga, Reiki, kabbalah, deep massage, slow food, or chicken soup for the soul. The nostrums of Deepak Chopra and Barbara De Angelis cannot rescue people like me. I believe in crazyass passion.

I have buried my fears, abandoned self-consciousness, and allowed myself to slide into sensation. I like the person I have become.

You can love more than one person at a time, and I don't give a damn what the self-help books say.

I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.

About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.

What's the point of being a lesbian if a woman is going to look and act like an imitation man?

About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.

Avoid constantly trying to adapt to situations, people, and other circumstances that have no value to your future. The phenomenon of always attempting to please and alter behavior is more likely to be unsuccessful then to enhance your life. Adapt by continuing to learn and improve your knowledge

Fake people can be silenced with truth.

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.

It's easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams… that is being naked.

Frighteningly honest. What Anthony Bourdain did to the world of cooking in Kitchen Confidential, Leopold will do to the world of journalism. It's Sid & Nancy meets All the President's Men.

Truth is overrated.

What does natural mean? Means non-artificial. Made by nature. But nature can't make things. It's not a person. Nature is the things that aren't made by people. But we're made by people, so what does that make us? Are we artificial?

I realised something. Since leaving for Nymanteles, since coming clean with my friends, being honest with them, I'd been nobody but me. No pretence. No lies. I had been me. I had found me.

While using generics, people describe themselves as who they want to be, not who they actually are. You need to get specific to bring out the edge cases.

Singing what's in your heart? Naming the things you love and loathe? You can get hurt that way. Hell, you will get hurt that way. But you'll get hurt trying to hide away in all that silence and leave your life unsung. There's no future without tears. Are you really setting your hopes on not getting hurt at all? You think that's an option? You clearly aren't listening to enough Morrissey songs.

Renee used to say real life was a bad country song, except bad country songs were believable and real life isn't.

So you get less shy about how hard you have to try. And you don't bother hiding your Kotter tapes. Sure, they expose some of my appalling deficiencies. But my appalling deficiencies are all I have to offer. Is there such a thing as romantic love that does not depend on someone embracing my deficiencies? I hope I will never find out.

I often took the bus to her apartment, where we drank bourbon and ginger ale, listened to the music we wanted to impress each other with, which eventually turned into listening to the music we actually liked.

sometimes you can feel like you're experiencing some of the most honest, most intimate moments of your life, while butchering a Hall & Oates song at 2 a.m. in a room full of strangers.

It felt disingenuous to keep saying, "If we're still together next year . . . " since we knew we wanted to be together next year. Pretending to keep those options open became dead weight.