Quotes About Self-discovery

Everybody has been told already that they're too shy, too aggressive, too emotional, too reserved. They know what their fatal flaw is. They know the one thing to do to get better. But they just don't commit to changing because they feel a little bit in love with it, a little bit in love with the way they've been.

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

We think we have to become something else to be satisfied, not realizing that being ourselves is the only thing that can satisfy us.

I remember going through school and doing art, which was the only thing that I actually found fulfilling, and I couldn't really figure out why. Then I got into college and started messing around with photography, and I realised that it was about getting the images that were in my head out in a way that didn't have to be spelt correctly.

And erm, perhaps looking like this it was perhaps the only thing I could do.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn't write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

The only thing I can give to young gay people is that when I was growing up, there were no role models that were blokey that were men. Everybody was flamboyant and camp, and I remember going, 'That's not me, so even though I think I am gay, I don't think I fit into this world.'

The problem with competition is that it takes away the requirement to set your own path, to invent your own method, to find a new way.

I would like my kids to go to college and be exposed to the real world and to make their own decisions and find their own path instead of sending them somewhere where they would be creatively conditioned for one life path or another.

The whole point of college is to find yourself, to figure out things before you go into the real world.

I wasn't trying to fit into a thing... it was not like I was like, 'Right, I'm the Han; I'm the Leia; I'm the Luke.' I was just like, 'Okay, I'm Rey, just trying to do me, just trying to do this scene, trying to do the right thing,' and I think that was a huge advantage because I think if not, it would've been a very different thing.

I'd tell my teenage self he did the right thing never getting a proper job.

The secret of success in every field is redefining what success means to you. It can't be your parent's definition, the media's definition, or your neighbor's definition. Otherwise, success will never satisfy you.

I liked theatre because I could hide behind a role I was playing, but now, I just love being on stage. I don't pretend that I'm anyone else, I just show my full range when I am up there, and it's very liberating.

I was always a pretty theatrical kid, a draggy kid... a little sissy. I dressed up in my grandma's heels and clothes... It's always been in me.

My number-one goal is to never feel like I'm strictly defining myself. The minute I feel like I'm doing that as anything - as theatrical, as feminist, as songwriter - I feel like the minute I name it, I'm stuck in a box.

As I walk'd by myself, I talk'd to myself, And myself replied to me; And the questions myself then put to myself, With their answers I give to thee.

Maybe a theme that touches all of my work is people reinventing themselves.

A song like 'Tears Dry on Their Own' is really sad, but it's hopeful, too - that was my theme song for the first boy who broke my heart.

They've all been held captive, of their own free will, of course, and yet when set free, they are lost.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are but tiny matters compared to what lies within us. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

The thing about the hard times, the stupid times, they make you who you are. And regrets—I look back and ask myself if I didn't do a certain thing that I'm really ashamed of, how would that change the present? What would it erase from my current life? What if I hadn't been such a badass idiot back then? Would I have learned the cost of that recklessness?

Peyton, I'm not married and you're not a lesbian. Think of the possibilities.

No one can live your life but you, Maggie. But if you find a way to use your talents to help people I think you'll be happier.