Quotes About Authenticity

We're not friends, Ms. Williams. You're lying to me half the time, and I'm lying to you all the time.

Everything he said sounded wonderful, but it wasn't true. I was desperately insecure and I did care what people thought. Jackson wasn't really talking about me. He was talking about an idea of me he'd concocted in his head. As soon as he remembered me and my true weaknesses in the clear light of day, he'd be as cruel this time as he had been the last.

It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can't see who you are.

Adelaide wished to love someone and be loved back. And to love someone and know that it was him she loved, not some idea of him. Maybe that was two wishes. Maybe it was only one.

People befriend me because they think I'm happy. I'm not even sure why they think I'm happy, but they do. I get distracted, and I laugh, and I turn something on in myself that makes me, maybe, fun to be with. And I'm just— I want you to know up front that I'm false advertising.

He didn't shut up when people wanted him to, he made them listen - and then he listened in return. He refused to take things lightly, though he was always quick to laugh.

I'll tell you what I don't want at my funeral," says Johnny. "I don't want a bunch of New York art-world types who don't even know me standing around in a stupid-ass reception room." "I don't want religious people talking about a God I don't believe in," says Gat. "Or a bunch of fake girls acting all sad and then putting lip gloss on in the bathroom and fixing their hair," says Mirren.

You feel like you know me, Cady, but you only know the me who comes here," he says. "It's--it's just not the whole picture. You don't know my bedroom with the window onto the airshaft, my mom's curry, the guys from school, the way we celebrate holidays. You only know me on this island...

Now is when we can stop pretending to be normal.

Open their souls. Open their veins. Wipe off their smiles.

But I know Downyflake only makes cake doughnuts. No glazed. No Boston cream. No jelly. Why are they lying?

Be normal, right now. Because you are, because you can be.

I'm not saying he wants to be the guy who only likes white people," Gat went on. "He knows he's not supposed to be that guy. He's a Democrat, he voted for Obama-but that doesn't mean he's comfortable having people of color in his beautiful family." Gat shook his head. "He's fake with us. He doesn't like the idea of Carrie with us. He doesn't call Ed Ed. He calls him sir. And he makes sure I know I'm an outsider, every chance he gets.

Be normal now," she whispers. "Right now." "What?" "Because you are. Because you can be.

HERE IS THE truth

He wasn't much of a dancer, but he knew it, and the faces he pulled when he danced gave him a perpetually startled look-as if he were, at regular intervals, surprised to find himself dancing.

He was a person who couldn't fake a smile but smiled often.

But his heart had lit never to be quenched again, and one thing in him at last was real.

Being born in a Christian home does not make you a Christian.

You don't try to be anyone else and that is a very hard thing in this world. It may seem unimportant right now when fitting in would be so much easier. But later you'll see. Being who you are is everything.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.

Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.