Quotes About Self-discovery

There's a lot about discovering who you are and how difficult that is. And it never stops.

There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn't. I failed myself.

You've been assigned an identity since birth. Then you spend the rest of your life walking around in it to see if it really fits. You try on all these different selves and abandon just as many. But really it's about dismantling all that false armor, getting down to what's real.

Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's is watching them so they can be who they really are

There are times when I wish I could go back and change the course of my life. Make different choices...But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on. Do you remember that I told you that at Spence?

There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming. They were.

We create the illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. And when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.

What makes a girl a girl? What makes a guy a guy? Do you have to be what they want you to be? Or do you stop and listen to that voice inside you? I know who I am. I'm Petra West. And I'm a girl. You want me to sleep somewhere else, fine. Whatever. But I'm not going to pretend to be somebody I'm not. I've done enough of that.

It's as if I've inherited a skin I cannot quite fit, and so I walk about constantly pulling and and tugging, pinning and pruning, trying desperately to fill it out, hoping that no one will look at me struggling and say, 'That one there- she's a fraud, Look how she doesn't fit at all.

What I can't figure out is why you gotta make yourself crackers trying to be somebody you can't ever be instead of just letting yourself be the one and only Evie O'Neill.

I've been thinking about that book about the boys who crash on the island....Lord of the Flies what about it....You know how you said it wasn't a true measure of humanity since there were no girls and you wondered how it would be different if there had been girls...Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's watching them so they can be who they really are.

But she wasn't sure she wanted the responsibility of loving anyone right now. The truth was, she was afraid that when she fell hard for a boy, she'd lose herself along the way. She'd seen it happen to lots of girls. They'd go from drinking gin, driving fast card and boldly shimmering in speakeasys, to these passive creatures, who couldn't make a move without asking their beaus if it would be okay. Evie had no intention of fading behind any man.

There had been something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming. They were.

At first, I was scared to be alone. No routines. No rules. Just me. But I think... Taylor wiped a tear away. I think I was always in the jungle. Before. It was always there. I think I had to come out here to find the answer. And what did you find? I love myself. They make it so hard for us to love ourselves. Taylor stared off into the dark. Her face gleamed with tears. Snot ran over her lips. The judges won't like that answer. Nobody's judging you. Taylor choked on a sob. Always, she whispered.

Duff's little moans traveled up her spine, made her head buzz. And another thought grabbed hold: She was doing this. She had the power to do this. THat she could be both completely vulnerable and totally in control was mind-blowing.

The citizens rise and wash, shave and brush. They don stockings and dresses, pants, shirts, and suspenders. They button up their need. Affix their aspirations. Tuck histories neatly inside drawers, creating themselves as they go, a rhapsody of reinvention.

It's like that moment when, often early in the morning, perhaps in a strange house, you pass before a mirror you hadn't known would be there. You see a glimpse of someone reflected in that mirror, and a moment passes before you recognize that that person is yourself. Literature exists in moments like that.

Er wusste nicht, warum er davonlief. Vielleicht, weil man mehr Mut brauchte, sich jemandem nahe zu fühlen, als allein zu sein.

I did not want to be recognized as "Anne Sexton's daughter," and I was running from that label as hard as I could.

Something is happening, all right. But it's perfectly natural, Lily. Stop worrying and let me show you what it means to be a woman." Her

Everybody has to find their own way out of hell. Just don't fall asleep there, that's all.

It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.

Knowing who you are is vastly more important than knowing where you are going or even what you can do. Because he is your Creator, God has quite a bit to say to you about who you are. And who you truly are carries within it the revelation of what you could be.

You were created for truth. So no matter how frightening it may be at the time, we must always be truthful with ourselves.