Quotes About Self-discovery

When I dropped out of high school at age 16, I didn't know I was going to become a writer - I just knew I'd never been happy in school, and I had this strong suspicion I'd be happy doing other things.

There is a great suspicion of saying that anyone, especially a child, is 'the product of destiny,' or 'formed by fate,' or 'predestined for a certain life.' I am suspicious, too, of efforts to cage children or adults in preconceived ideas of who they are or should be.

'South Pacific' - I really learned a lot. I swear I like to say that during 'South Pacific,' I went from being a girl to being a woman.

My whole life growing up, both my parents told me not to swear like a sailor. After college, I recall there was finally a time where I swore, and neither one of them was correcting me, and I felt so relieved. I thought, finally; I can finally be myself and not get yelled at.

I often think, if I hadn't have done 'Blood, Sweat and T-shirts,' where would I be? What would I be doing?

When I was 35, all of a sudden I thought maybe it'd be nice to knit a sweater.

I think, a lot of my career and my life before I went to Sweden, I felt like I was trying to be someone else.

As I've gotten to know myself over the years, I realised I'm kind of a sweet, sensitive guy, a shy guy, and communication is not something I'm so good at.

'Sweet Dreams' is such a dark-sounding song, but it's about not taking anything for granted; share yourself with others after you have first spent some time with yourself.

I want to do different things. I don't want to be stuck in the 'sweet girl' box. I don't want to be stuck in the 'Oh, she is so glamorous' box.

In my 20s, I was leaving university, getting married, or having a baby. And then, in my 30s, I was just keeping my head above water. When I hit 40, I thought, 'I have got to get a grip of my life and really point it in the direction I want it to go rather than just swim hard against the current.'

Swimming forced me to deal with the things I wanted to escape. It helped me work through a lot of feelings and frustrations, because I had hours under water just to swim laps and think.

I'm a big believer in everybody being themselves. If not doing a swimsuit calendar is yourself, that's great. But if doing a swimsuit calendar is yourself, then you should be able to do it. What I do outside the car adds to who I am and expresses a different side of me.

I remember a distinct moment when it was my junior year of college, and the content I was making was changing and not really myself, and I tried to switch back to just putting me out there. I'm happy that happened really early in my career, because that was before I started doing podcasts or writing.

Music and art well and truly saved my life really - the light switched on when I discovered art.

After boarding school in Switzerland, at, like, 14 or 15, my life clicked, and I just realized, 'I don't want to be like anyone around me at my school. I don't think the world revolves around money.'

At one point, I was thinking about going to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, but then I realized it's actually not what I wanted to do.

I think it will be helpful to people because I know the expectations that are put on you as a sex symbol, and how Marilyn Monroe suffered and so on, and I was able to get free of that.

Not to get too deep on shaving my mustache, but it was kind of symbolic of, 'This is a moment of liberation, a chance to reinvent yourself.' That's kind of what I did.

I've changed in my sympathies since I've become a mother myself. In high school I went through a period where I was close with my mom and had to break with her in order to find myself and come back. Since that was my experience, that's often what happens in my books.

I no longer get into stupid thought wormholes about identity and stuff. At one time, I did have some impostor syndrome about acting, but then I remembered I've been doing this since I was little, actually.

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

I love my fans in Pakistan for being so kind and letting me be myself. Along this journey of exploring myself and a new world out here, I'm always going to make them proud, too. They're my constant support system.