Quotes About Self-discovery

I thought of the bowl of water my mother taught me to look into. It was true, everything a person ever needed to know was right there in a single bowl small enough to fit in the palm of one hand.

It helped to write things down. It ordered your thoughts and if you were lucky revealed feelings you didn't know you had.

Maybe you'll both be who you always were if you're given time.

I have wondered all my life what I am made of, if there is straw inside of me, or a beating heart, or if I simply burned for all I did not have.

once a girl walked into a library she could never be controlled again.

In doing so, he understood who he was. In that moment, in his aunt's greenhouse, he felt more alone than ever.

As he walked back to the neighbor's he realized that the magic tricks he'd taught himself were childish foolishness. What mattered was the blood that ran through him, the same blood that had flowed through Maria Owens. Once, when he'd cut himself in a tangle of brambles on the way to the lake, drops of his blood had burned through the fabric of his shirt. This was what bloodline magic was. It was inside him.

Of course, she always thinks then. Math plus desire equals who you are. For the first time she has begun to appreciate her own gray eyes.

Each time I opened the window in my bedroom I smelled salt and fish and human desire. I knew what I wanted: my own place in the world, not a path I took because I was under my father's command but one I had chosen for myself. I wanted to know how other girls my age wore their hair, for mine was still in braids as if I were a child. How had they learned to dance, choose silk dresses from the shops, form friendships?

Oh, how Vincent wished he could tell his sisters how unexpected everything was. He wished they could sit down at the table, today, in the sunlight, so that he could tell them everything. Once, a long time ago, before we knew who we were, we thought we wanted to be like everyone else. How lucky to be exactly who we were.

I was walking through a dream rather than living my life. I had become someone else, but who was that someone?

She had come to believe that if her father had wanted a docile daughter, he should never have allowed her access to the ocean.

we have to fight them. The best way to do this is to be who you are, every part of you, the good and the bad, the sorrowful and the joyous. You can never run away. There is nowhere to run to. I think your mother knew that in the end, and that is why she came back here to be buried. We are who we are from the start.

Although she'd never believe it, those lines in Gillian's face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she's gone through and what she's survived and who exactly she is, deep inside.

Sometimes walking away is the bravest thing you can do. When you get there, you'll know where you are.

I no longer cared if my mother disliked me. I didn't understand that when I closed myself to her, I took a part of her bitterness inside me. It was green and unforgiving, and as it grew it made me more like her. It gave me my strength, but it gave me my weakness as well.

Perhaps I was drawn to stories in which people found their true desires because I was a stranger to myself.

As the summer passed, I began to feel free. I had time to myself, and I enjoyed watching over the children. I felt a sort of joy I'd never felt before. I was so unaccustomed to such emotions it took some time before I realized I was happy.

What if I don't wish to be what I am?" "Then you will face a life of unhappiness

FREQUENTLY, PHYSICAL ILLNESSES are the body's response to permanent disregard of its vital functions. One of our most vital functions is an ability to listen to the true story of our own lives.

tragic and painful state of being separated from his true self, to which doctors refer offhandedly as depression.

The aim of therapy is not to correct the past, but to enable the patient to confront his own history, and to grieve over it.

We discover that we are no longer compelled to follow the former pattern of disappointment, suppression of pain, and depression, since we now have another possibility of dealing with disappointment: namely, experiencing the pain. In this way we at last gain access to our earlier experiences—to the parts of ourselves and our fate that were previously hidden from us.

Experience has taught me that my own body is the source of all the vital information that has enabled me to achieve greater autonomy and self-confidence. Only when I allowed myself to feel the emotions pent up for so long inside me did I start extricating myself from my own past.