Quotes About Self-expression

I felt like I'd unzipped my skin and momentarily stepped out of it, leaving a crazy person in charge

And second, once we are caught in the pattern of creating ourselves from cultural blueprints, it becomes a primary way of receiving validation. We become unknowingly bound up in a need to please the cultural father--the man holding the brush--and live up to his images of what a woman should be and do. We're rewarded when we do; life gets difficult when we don't.

I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one.

afflicted with the worst female curse on earth, the need to mold myself to expectations.

I worried so much about how i looked and whether i was doing things right, i felt half the time i was impersonating a girl instead of really being one. - Lily

The kjerringsleppet were a marvelous image for the empowered self. A "woman on the loose" is a woman who leaves the woods where she has been growing strong all these years. She swoops out of the trees, ringing her bell. She is saying, I am here now. And I am not going away. The motto that the women on the loose adopted is: "To improvise, surprise, and come uninvited." That's not a half-bad motto.

When someone tries to put you back into a box from which you've already escaped, you might recall a line from the Indian poet Mirabai. She said, "I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious!"13

Then, on the roof, as close to the sky as I could get, I danced. My body was a reed pen. It spoke the words I couldn't write: I dance not for men to choose me. Not for God. I dance for Sophia. I dance for myself.

Remembering Enheduanna, who signed her name to her writing, I reopened the books and signed mine: Ana. Not Ana, daughter of Matthias, or Ana, wife of Jesus. Just Ana.

When someone tries to put you back into a box from which you've already escaped, you might recall a line from the Indian poet Mirabai. She said, "I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious!

May Sarton novel, The Reckoning, Ella writes to her friend Laura, "Do you suppose growing up always means diluting [our] fierce purpose for the sake of others?"4

My father says my mind is weak, and my tongue, weaker, she'd told me then. It seemed now her tongue was not weak, but the fiercest part of her.

A 'woman on the loose' is a woman who leaves the woods where she has been growing strong all these years. She swoops out of trees, ringing her bell. She is saying, I am here now. And I am not going away. The motto that the women on the loose adopted is: 'To improvise, surprise, and come uninvited.

She was taking her own liberties with him. Was this liberation?

wanted them to claim their own actions by saying "I" instead of "we," but here there was no "I." Even "we" did not exist without the permission of their Great Leader.

Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.

Every woman should have a purse of her own.

All my life I've been well behaved, she said. It's about time I got to push people around and not apologize.

So!, I thought, for the first time, there's more than one path to happiness! I likes that. I thought they were brave. I didn't want to be them, but I liked that they wanted to be them. It opened a world of possibilities in my mind, just the idea that every thing was much bigger than I thought.

The healing process kicks into gear with with the words This is what you did to me. That statement is not gentle or polite; it's absolutely direct. In fact, I know that seeing it might feel like a punch in the stomach. I deliberately removed the distancing veil of objectivity from the words This is what you did by adding 'to me'.

he felt about his inability to open up to anyone emotionally, but I urged him to go easy on himself. He hadn't had anyone to teach him those things when he was young, and they're pretty tough to pick up on your own. "It would be like expecting yourself to play a piano concerto when you didn't even know where middle-C was!

It is frightening to be different," said Anna.

the most important thing of all was that I should be myself. "If you try to be someone other than yourself you'll never be happy," he had said. "You've got to be honest with yourself so that you can be honest with other people.

I have trouble asking for what I want, especially when it comes to men. If you don't ask for what you want, how do you get it? Felicia asked. If you're relying on him guessing, you're sabotaging your own happiness.