Quotes About Authenticity

We should all busy ourselves in being who we are

Yet she was determined that when she married she would not forget who she was and who her people were. She would not affect any airs.

It was typical of so many rural French restaurants, with its air of quiet assurance, a sense of being what it was and nothing more.

like yearning to be a swan when you were demonstrably a bird of a different feather;

Or was it that people, for all they wished their friends well, never actually wished them that well?

He decided there was a lot to be said for bulldozers. They were honest vehicles—honest in the sense that they did not purport to be anything other than what they were.

If a person acts out of character, then there's one thing you can be sure of: there is something wrong. I have seen this so many times I have lost count.

You are innocent in your heart," she had said to him. "That is the most important thing." And he had thought about that for a few moments before shaking his head and saying, "I would like that to be true, Mma, but it is not. It is what other people think. That is the most important thing.

This advertisement let you be yourself, which is what most people really wanted, when you came to think of it.

And yet, she suddenly wondered, should you actually lie about how much Proust you've read?

I've always admired stylists. I put the writers of bumphable, ready-to-wear prose, calculated to sell, guaranteed not to shock, in the same category as artists who can't draw. There is a lack of bravery and a lot of fraud in them. I have tried never to write a book that didn't attempt something new in the way of narrative technique. Writing is an assault on cliche. I find little to admire in writers who make no attempt at originality.

but of course any time we become something other than ourselves, it is just death by another name.

You don't have to do anything, you only have to be what you are.

Imagine what it must be like for teenagers who don't feel they have room to breathe in their own homes. If you are a parent reading this book, you care about your child. If she is quirky, unusual, or nonconformist, ask yourself whether you are doing everything you can to nurture her unusual interests, style, or skills, or whether instead you are directly or subtly pushing her to hide them.

In the minds of their peers, too often students become caricatures of themselves.

Being indie means being artistic and finding your own eccentric identity. The name of the game for being an indie kid is to never admit you are one. If you do, it goes against your beliefs against labeling, thus making you a hypocrite.

represents their "death" to the world as they

A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true face.

Now I'd like someone to tell me there is no drama in real life!

Love ya" is the coward's way of saying "I love you.

Rosemary, in his heart your brother is a lover. The shrewd businessman, the adventurer, the dandy are but costumes the lover wears.

Who you pretends you is, you comes to be. The nigger that bows to the Master on the street, who acts the fool, who forgets who he am, that man a slave. He shuts his bible, he deserves to be a slave

Who you pretends you is, you comes to be. The bigger what bows to the Master on the street, who acts the fool, who forgets who he am, that man a slave. He shuts his bible, he deserves to be a slave

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.