Quotes About Authenticity

When you sit right down in the middle of yourself you're gonna wanna have a comfortable chair.

once you stop worrying what the world will think of you, your life will become that much easier to live.

It was probably not so unusual to be a different person with a different man, for all parts were authentically within, waiting to be coaxed out by one person or another

Even a plain woman will attract the eye if she is happy, while the most elaborately coiffed and bejeweled woman in a room, if she cannot summon contentment, will seem to be merely decorative.

Words are never trite when they're spoken with sincerity

She wanted him to see all of her and also none of her. She wanted him to be dazzled by the bits and blinded by the whole. She wanted him to see her whole and not in pieces. She had hopes that were hard to satisfy.

It was frustrating when people loved you and took an interest in you and sometimes worried about you and personally cared what you did with yourself. Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good bout yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could clip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct and had nothing at all to give. (Lena, 194)

Honesty was a tough customer... Once you started allowing yourself some honesty, it couldn't easily be contained or limited to one part of your life. It was like poison ivy or a bossy houseguest. Once it was there, you couldn't tell it what to do. You had to really fight to keep it from taking over.

Because she was raw and uncertain, and she liked to keep all the messy parts of herself to herself. ... As much as Lena liked to hide the mess and display the finished product, by this point she was all mess and no product.

She had never had a boy talk to her like that. There was no cover of bullshit, no flirtation, no added charm, but his look was searing. He was different from anyone she had known.

It's always nervewracking to put yourself out there. But it's the root of joy.

Sometimes he felt like the only one on earth. He was different. He always was. His attempts at living in the regular world seemed stupid and false.

She was never going to be the kind of person who didn't stick out in all directions. To want it was the same as hating herself. That was the truth. She breathed those words. She could have repeated them a hundred times and they wouldn't have hurt any worse. Reality was stubborn for sure, but it was large and it had possibilities. It was a sweet relief when you let it come.

We follow our scripts like actors in a very large, very long production. And even with no audience, none of us gives a hint that it isn't real.

Could she kiss him? Would he allow her that? Was that something he could pretend was nothing? What about making love? Could she just open up her legs and pull him inside her and have him all she wanted and later give her assent that it was nothing?

Bridget loved the Marly who glittered and preened, but this was the woman she remembered. That was how the story went. That was how it really ended.

Some girls couldn't stand being alone. Bridget was different. She went to movies, restaurants, even parties by herself. She loved her three friends above all other things, but she'd rather be alone than cling to people she didn't care about.

Intimacy came faster when a person wore their pain and poor luck for all to see.

she'd rather be alone than cling to people she didn't care about.

The gap between what we say and what we feel is so big and dark that sometimes I think I'll fall into it and just keep falling

If you want to be taken seriously, be serious. Take yourself seriously.

A person had to live with his lies. That was what they cost.

Vera thought for a moment that she might have found a man if she'd scrubbed up a bit better, then decided that no man was worth the time it took to plaster stuff on your face in the morning, when you could have an extra cup of tea instead.

It matters what's true. - Ann Druyan