Quotes About Self-expression

Whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness...we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.

Everything that we abandon in the false dream of conforming to a system is precisely what will subsequently come along and block our path.

The Reader's Bill of Rights: The right to not read… to skip pages… to not finish… to reread… to read anything… to escapism… to read anywhere… to browse… to read out loud… to not defend your tastes.

If I was left to my own devices, you would see about ten T-shirts in rotation with maybe a few nice pairs of jeans - but I also like to look good. I like feeling really well put together, I just don't have the aptitude and the knowledge to do that.

I'm one of them. The weirdos and the freaks. My point was that it's ok to be different, and from now on we'd better be, if we're going to make something of ourselves. It's the one thing I learned in school. Different is ok. -Victoria

This is best thing about being manly: it's so easy to fake. Smear some oil on your face, or nod and say "Aaah" near mechanics.

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?

I recalled a theory my father had concocted one night, while we sat in an Oakland juke joint sharing a plate of ribs. He'd said humor, above all else, was what bound each of us and separated each of us from one another. Humor was the great moment of truth. What we thought was funny was how we defined ourselves, and revealed ourselves, whether we knew it or not.

I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

Why march to the beat of your own drummer when you can skip?

If you haven't got your own mind and can't do what you want, you're not an individual, just part of a mass.

She had long been aware that her organic being produced all the physical expressions of emotion, while she herself felt nothing. It was a paradox.

Art is a high calling – fears are coincidental. Coincidental, sneaky and disruptive, we might add, disguising themselves variously as laziness, resistance to deadlines, irritation with materials or surroundings, distraction over the achievements of others – indeed as anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot. What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit.

Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty ; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward. Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next. Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself.

Consider that if artist equals self, then when (inevitably) you make flawed art, you are a flawed person, and when (worse yet) you make no art, you are no person at all!

At some point you have to stop and say 'Enough. This is me.' and fight for it as hard as you can.

Trusting your individual uniqueness challenges you to lay yourself open.

If all that a stone is expected to be is the stone that it is, why isn't a man expected to be the kind of man that he is instead of someone's idea of what man he should be?

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.

There are lots of people I admire and respect, but I don't necessarily want to be like them. I'm to happy being myself.

He whipped out his sheet, then pulled it over himself and wrapped it tightly around his face like an old woman in a shawl. 'How do I look?' 'Like the ugliest shanky girl I've ever seen,' Minho responded. 'You better thank the gods above you were born a dude.' 'Thanks.

My purpose in life does not include a hankering to charm society.

Bowie himself said, "Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity."2 After reviewing his troubled early years, British psychologist Oliver James wrote, "What seems to have been the trigger for his shift from distressed and tortured to emotionally healthy, was his adoption of personas in his musical career."3