Quotes About Self-discovery

Being an artist means forever healing your own wounds and at the same time endlessly exposing them.

Sometimes Felix seemed like an empty house, but he wasn't really. It was just that he kept all his possessions in a locked room. And when, once every few years, the door cracked open for a moment, she felt strangely moved to see herself within.

It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere.

Like any child, I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after.

Adults ask children, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We don't ask, "What job do you want?" We are asking who they will be, not what they will do. This is a difference with quite a large distinction.

A vague and immense desire to create was in the air. Everyone claimed to be devoted to an artistic activity, or planned to be. All activities were equal, they agreed, and instead of painting or playing the flute, one could always create oneself through psychoanalysis.

La vie, le désir, asexués. Je le savais, à quinze ans, en demandant à Colette de nous embrasser sur la bouche, « pour savoir

Jeg udmålte tiden på en anden måde, med hele min krop. Jeg opdagede hvad man faktisk er i stand til, nemlig hvad som helst. Ophøjede eller dødelige former for begær, mangel på værdighed samt overbevisninger og opførsel som jeg havde opfattet som forrykte hos andre indtil jeg så mig selv tage tilflugt til dem. Uden at han var klar over det, fik han mig til at føle mig mere forbundet med verden.

People are like tea bags–they never know their own strength until they get into hot water.

I'd got a part in the original cast of 'Cats' when I was 16, and that kept me going for a while. After that, I felt lost, both personally and professionally - I was trying to find a way not to be seen only as this bubbly, bright, vivacious person. It felt like I'd lost the freedom to make mistakes.

I was in high school, and I was the guy that always got cast in the school play. Theater is huge in high school in Minnesota, and I knew that I was very good at that, and gifted, and I was 'the guy,' but it still wasn't something I ever thought of as 'a job' or something that one could do professionally.

People are full of great advice... Professors, parents, friends mean well... But in the end, the person driving this thing called life is you. Listen to you. Spend time being alone. Learn your worth. Dream. And never forget where you came from.

Not to invent yourself is to be false. To follow preordained rules is a profound betrayal of what it means to be human.

I spent a year in a 12-step program, really committed, because I could not believe what had happened - that I might have killed myself.

I only thought I'd get one arm done at first. One arm turned into the other arm. Then I started tattooing my lower arms. I remember saying, 'Mom, don't worry, I'm never going to do anything on my neck.' Then I went to my neck and my chest and my legs, and I kept on progressing from there.

I spent a lot of time thinking that I was some kind of foundling, that I had been a changeling, that I had been found under a bush somewhere, and that I couldn't possibly be kin - but the more I live, the more I feel absolutely like I come out of my family. I'm a sort of strange natural progression.

This is going to sound pretentious and esoteric, but I truly mean it from the bottom of my heart. Acting has always been a spiritual journey for me. The very first project I ever acted on paralleled my experience so perfectly even before I was aware of it.

Naturally, I've always felt more like a writer myself, and I've always written. I have people who are writers who've been promoting that side of me. I also draw, too. Those things I feel most comfortable in.

I try to write about a woman finding her self-respect, valuing herself, and liking herself again. But what one desperately wants now is to write a proper novel.

Anytime you're sitting there writing a book about yourself, it's a pretty self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess.

I know I am not the first woman to ask this, but how can I be both damaged and loveable? How do I become the protagonist of a story?

I love a kind of shambling outsider protagonist who always feels like they're 'other.'

I learned that I had been brought up as a protected, blindfolded daughter.

My early family life was incredibly happy but I was very, very protected and very much living in a bubble. I was born with my legs bent inwards and clawed feet.