Quotes About Self-expression

As long as one writes only for oneself, writing is a free act by means of which, to use an oxymoron, one secretly opens oneself.

On the page was exactly what I had written, but it was clearer, more immediate. The erasures, the transpositions, the small additions, and, in some way, her handwriting itself gave me the impression that I had escaped from myself and now was running a hundred paces ahead with an energy and also a harmony that the person left behind didn't know she had.

I behaved like that certainly to feel free from all the old bonds, to make it clear that I didn't care anymore about the judgment of relatives and friends, their values, their wanting me to be consistent with what they imagined themselves to be.

There is this presumption, in those who feel destined for art and above all literature: we act as if we had received an investiture, but in fact no one has invested us with anything, it is we who have authorized ourselves to be authors.

Gone was the pleasure of re-educating my voice, my gestures, my way of dressing and walking, as if I were competing for the prize of best disguise, the mask worn so well that it was almost a face.

Ich kam mir verrückt vor, leichtsinnig, aber ich war froh darüber. Ein Teil von mir war es leid, immer die Vernünftige zu spielen.

Parlai di me come se avessi cercato da sempre, per impormi, di essere maschio nell'intelligenza - io mi sono inventata dai maschi, colonizzata dalla loro immaginazione, [...].

Si a la mujer la sabes educar, bien. Si no la sabes educar, déjala correr, que te hará daño.

Fiz uma pausa, depois continuei: talvez haja algo errado nessa vontade dos homens de nos instruir; na época eu era uma menina e não percebia que, naquele seu desejo de me transformar, estava a prova de que não gostava de mim tal como eu era, queria que eu fosse outra, ou melhor, não desejava simplesmente uma mulher, mas uma mulher como ele imaginava que poderia ser se tivesse nascido mulher.

No quiero ser así, me decía, especialmente en el duermevela; sin embargo, esa era yo, y percatarme de que no conseguía manifestarme más que de ese modo —áspera, criticona— me impulsaba a veces no a corregirme, sino, con un placer perverso, a ser peor.

Lila was happy, and she was drawing me deeper and deeper into her fierce happiness, because she had suddenly found, perhaps without even realizing it, an opportunity that allowed her to portray the fury she directed against herself, the insurgence, perhaps for the first time in her life, of the need - and here the verb used by Michele was appropriate - to erase herself.

Puoi copiarmi, farmi il ritratto preciso come fanno gli artisti, ma la mia merda resterà sempre la mia, e la tua la tua. Ah, Lenù, che ci succede a tutti quanti, siamo come i tubi quando l'acqua gela, che brutta cosa è la testa scontenta.

Why was I worried? Because if, in everyday life, I was so embarrassed, so cautious, that I scarcely breathed, the diary produced in me a craving for truth. I thought that when one writes, it makes no sense to be contained, to censor oneself, and as a result I wrote mostly—maybe only—about what I would have preferred to be silent about, resorting among other things to a vocabulary that I would never have dared to use in speaking. This

Czu?am si? jak postrzelona wariatka, ale podoba?o mi si? to. Jaka? cz??? mnie zm?czy?a si? odgrywaniem osoby rozs?dnej.

Submission to something you didn't preach yourself is no good, I quote. Because Man must burst his ridiculous bonds, which consist of what is supposedly current reality with a prospect of a future reality of scarcely any greater value.

When man is not permitted to be himself, he cannot be encountered.

It's so hard to be sincere without sounding pretentious,' she said. 'I mean, what are you supposed to do if you really happen to feel like you've swallowed the universe? Not say so?

Well, it made sense. If she could write a book, he would be out of a job. That's why Madame Bovary had to be too dumb and banal to write Madame Bovary: so Flaubert could have a great humane moment where he said he was Madame Bovary. But I wasn't dumb or banal, and I lived in the future. Nobody was going to trick me into marrying some loser, and even if they did, I would write the goddamn book myself.

To associate art with the artist is to forfeit art, because at this moment we are pushed into the arena of self-expression, and can be recognized only by what differentiates us from others.

Because I didn't have a decent jacket. Because I thought it was better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

Labels are for cans, not people.

There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself.

Those who toe the party line do not choose their own way but submerge their potential for wholeness in a relatively unconscious existence of collective conformity.

When we choose to live authentically we chip away at others prisons of pretend and create an opportunity for them to walk out of darkness into freedom.