Quotes About Self-discovery

every man has a basement. Some lay dark. Unlit. Concealed. Others sprawl like airport runways for all the world to see. The difference is determined by whether he is hiding something or digging it up. Hammer or shovel says much about a man. [Murphy Shepherd']

Hatred is a commodity I couldn't afford in prison. Too expensive then. Too expensive now... I couldn't live every day with that stuff bubbling up inside me.... Gage taught me that. He found me in a bad place. Picked me up. Showed me I had a choice. I couldn't change my circumstances, but I had a lot to say about who I was in the midst of them. And who I became. Gage helped me, showed me, how to lay it down.

Belonging comes before identity. Ownership births purpose. Someone speaks whose we are, and out of that we become who we are. It's just the way the heart works.

Memories surfaced and flashed before my mind's eye—the hospital, tear stained nights, never-ending days, loneliness so deep I thought I would drown—and maybe sometimes I wanted to. I flung open the doors of my mind, dug them out of their holes where I'd hidden them from Maggie, and pretty soon ten pads turned into twenty, and all the beauty and wonder—and yes, even ugliness—of my life stared back at me. The mirror told no lies.

If you are alone, tell some stories to yourself. This is a different kind of pleasure and it has, indeed, its reward. I have tasted a little of everything, and I have truly never enjoyed anything more.

Teachers don't just teach; they can be vital personalities who help young people to mature, to understand the world, and to understand themselves. A good education consists of much more than useful facts and marketable skills.

We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others—our parents, for instance—and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live.

There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me .

Contacting and living from our True Self is the central task of personal growth.

There are tales that can give you yourself completely and the world could never treat you so badly then that you wouldn't neglect it. One can get everything by listening or looking in the right way: there are all sorts of turns.

Everything lovely in you for a perpetual companion, so that you'd never be frightened or disappointed or ashamed any more. There are tales that can give you yourself completely and the world could never treat you so badly then that you wouldn't neglect it. One can get everything by listening or looking in the right way: there are all sorts of turns.

Maybe we spend most of our decades being someone else, avoiding ourselves, maybe a man is only himself, his true self, for a few days in his entire life.

How many times have I failed before? How many times have I stood here like this, in front of my own image, in front of my own person, trying to convince him not to be scared, to go on, to get out of this rut? How many times before I finally convince myself, how many private, erasable deaths will I need to die, how may self-murders is it going to take, how many times will I have to destroy myself before I learn, before I understand?

You can only go to places that you will let yourself go.

How do you convince someone to change, to stop being afraid of himself? How do you convince yourself not to be so scared all the time?

How many times before I finally convince myself, how many private, erasable deaths will I need to die, how many self-murders is it going to take, how many times will I have to destroy myself before I learn, before I understand?

But really, it's probably just easiest to keep doing what I'm doing. You know how it goes. At first it's just for the time being, until you can get your own story together, be the hero in something of your own. You tell people it's your day job, you tell yourself it's your day job, and then, at some point, without you noticing, it stops being your day job and just becomes your job.

KUNG FU KID I'm sorry, Ma. I'm really sorry. MA (waving you off) I don't care about that. Just promise me something, okay? KUNG FU KID Okay. MA Don't grow up to be Kung Fu Guy. KUNG FU KID Okay, okay, I promise. (then) Wait, what? MA You heard me. Don't be Kung Fu Guy. KUNG FU KID Oh. Then what should I be? MA Be more.

What was I thinking? Because, if I'm being honest, I'm not sure I would even know what I do with myself. Even if you could skip to the end of it all, what would I do the next day with my life that would be so different from all the days that came before? What miraculous change would I make, after getting out of this rut, what new kind of person would I choose to be that next day? And the next? And how about the day after, and all of the days after that?

At first it's just for the time being, until you can get your own story together, be the hero in something of your own. You tell people it's your day job, you tell yourself it's your day job, and then, at some point, without you noticing, it stops being your day job and just becomes your job.

Now where am I? You're in the interstitial matrix that fills up the space between stories. Who said that? You did. I did? Wait, who am I? You're you. Oh, good. Thanks. Seriously, where are we? We're in a shuttle. I'm taking you back to where you were in story space.

IDK, I never represented someone for self-imprisonment before.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

I'm not a concept. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to 'make them alive'…but I'm just a fucked up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours.