Quotes About Authenticity

He chose a Lessian costume- jeans and a cowboy shirt, only slightly wrong- and made his way south along the hillside, toward the house.

but can one "get" an edge any more than one can "get" a sense of humor? Or do you fake it, the way a humorless businessman memorizes jokes and is considered "a riot," leaving parties before he runs out of material?

It is a surprise to me to like myself; among all the elaborate possibilities I contemplated for my future, that never figured. My hard-won contentment reflects the simple truth that inner peace often hinges on outer peace. In the gnostic gospel of St. Thomas, Jesus says, "If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.

If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.

I met people on college campuses who were defining themselves as genderqueer to express revolutionary feelings, or to communicate their individuality; they were gender fluid without being gender dysphoric. This phenomenon may be culturally significant, but it has only a little bit in common with the people who feel they can have no authentic self in their birth gender.

Cleaving to our own lives, with all their challenges and limitations and particularities, is vital.

In his classic work Stigma, Erving Goffman argues that identity is formed when people assert pride in the thing that made them marginal, enabling them to achieve personal authenticity and political credibility.

must love them for themselves

Technology is in its proper place when it helps us bond with the real people we have been given to love. It's out of its proper place when we end up bonding with people at a distance, like celebrities, whom we will never meet.

most conversations take at least seven minutes to really begin.1 Up until that point, we are able to rely on our usual repertoire of topics—the weather, routine reports about our day, minimal and predictable chitchat. But around seven minutes, there is almost always a point where someone takes a risk—or could take a risk. The risk may be silence; it may be an unexpected question or observation; it may be an expression of a deeper or different emotion than we usually allow.

I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts.

The nicer I am, the more people think I'm lying.

People some times say that the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually its the way things happen to you in real life thats unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, its like watching television. You don't feel anything.

When I did my self-portrait, I left all the pimples out because you always should. Pimples are a temporary condition and they don't have anything to do with what you really look like. Always omit the blemishes—they're not part of the good picture you want.

La sinceridad del momento es la esencia de un diario.

I really look awful, and I never bother to primp up or try to be appealing because I just don't want anyone to get involved with me. And that's the truth. I play down my good features and play up the bad ones. So I look awful and I wear the wrong pants and the wrong shoes and I come at the wrong time with the wrong friends, and I say the wrong things and I talk to the wrong person, and then still sometimes somebody gets interested and I freak out and I wonder, What did I do wrong?

I say, "I hate this 'keepin' it real' stuff. What's it all about, anyway? Real is what is. If you have to keep something the way it is, then it's not going with the natural flow. That's lying. I mean, if you can't change because you think this is the way it always was and anything else would be phony, that's stupid.

If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me.

I like someone who is a little crazy but coming from a good place. I think scars are sexy because it means you made a mistake that led to a mess.

Love one person, take care of them until you die. You know, raise kids. Have a good life. Be a good friend. And try to be completely who you are. And figure out what you personally love. And like go after it with everything you've got no matter how much it takes.

I always play women I would date.

I don't take good pictures 'cause I have the kind of beauty that moves.

I don't like my language watered down, I don't like my edges rounded off.

Squint your eyes and look closer I'm not between you and your ambition I am a poster girl with no poster I am thirty-two flavors and then some And I'm beyond your peripheral vision So you might want to turn your head Cause someday you might find you're starving and eating all of the words you said.