Quotes About Self-discovery

She'd lost too much of herself in parenthood to simply go back to who she'd been before.

I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.

Ever since you were a girl, you've been running for what you wanted... Now you're lost, but you're still running full speed... How will you ever figure out what you want when everything is a blur?

She could leave them. She could break free and go her own way. It would be frightening, but it couldn't be worse than staying, watching this toxic dance of theirs, letting their world become her world until there was nothing left of her at all, until she was as small as a comma.

If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable, ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted; to be loved and admired. Now i think perhaps I'd like to be known.

She hadn't realized how much she'd needed a dream, but it had transformed her, changed her from poor motherless and abandoned Tully to a girl poised to take on the world. The goal made her life story unimportant, gave her something to reach for, to hang on to

Sometimes when you open the door to your mother's past, you find your own future.

she'd always believed that she didn't belong. It was, she realized, an ugly bit of baggage that she'd carried here from her youth, and she'd been so damned busy hanging on to it that she'd failed to notice that the bags were empty.

They couldn't touch my heart. They couldn't change who I was inside. My body Ã¢â'¬Â¦ they broke that in the first days, but not my heart, V. Whatever he did, it was to your body, and your body will heal.

in the wildest place in America, on the edge of civilization, where water in all its forms can kill you, you learn who you are. Not who you dream of being, not who you imagined you were, not who you were raised to be.

In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today's young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.

You were struggling to break free of being my daughter but unsure of how to be yourself, while I was afraid to let you go. It's the circle of love.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. —MARCEL PROUST

If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable, ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.

I turn to Kate, see her glowing face and her beautiful green eyes. In them, I see my whole life. Everything I've ever been, and ever wanted to be. That's what your best friend is: a mirror.

Mama was engaged in a continual quest to "find" herself. In the past few years, she'd tried EST and the human potential movement, spiritual training, Unitarianism. Even Buddhism. She'd cycled through them all, cherry-picked pieces and bits. Mostly, Leni thought, Mama had come away with T-shirts and sayings. Things like, What is, is, and what isn't, isn't. None of it seemed to amount to much.

Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.

There were journeys in life no one could take for you.

A life, not merely an existence. That was her dream: a world in which her life and her choices were not defined by the rheumatic fever she'd contracted at fourteen, a life where she uncovered strengths heretofore unknown, where she was judged on more than her appearance.

Her teenage daughter was sprouting like a tree, blooming every day into another variation of who she would someday become. Moods twisted her up and left her looking sometimes like a girl who'd just washed up onshore, unable to quite remember who she was and who she wanted to be. Kate

He renamed her, just like that, turned her into a different woman.

Elsa heard the message but didn't care, and not caring felt good. Almost exhilarating, in fact. For once, she had not let someone else tell her where she belonged.

Mama had chosen to dig for treasure through the dirt of Dad's toxic, porous love, but not Leni. Not anymore.

He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.