Quotes About Self-discovery

Los niños adoptados nos autoinventamos porque no tenemos otra salida; hay una ausencia, un vacío, un signo de interrogación justo al principio de nuestras vidas. Una parte crucial se ha ido, y de forma violenta, como una bomba en el útero materno.

Every day in my consultancy, I meet men and women who are out of their minds. That is, they have not the slightest idea who they really are or what it is that matters to them. The question 'How shall I live?' is not one I can answer on prescription.

It took me a long time to realise that there are two kinds of writing; the one you write and the one that writes you. The one that writes you is dangerous. You go where you don't want to go. You look where you don't want to look.

I think men can really get in the way when you are trying to sort your life out and get on with it. Because they just take up so much space. I'm not under any illusions that I could have been where I am now in literary terms if I had been heterosexual. I really believe I would not be.

The maze. Find your own way through and you shall win your heart's desire. Fail and you will wander for ever in these unforgiving walls.

The future is intact, still unredeemed, but the past is irredeemable. She is not who she thought she was.

Perhaps I wasn't a child of God at all, but the daughter of a Frenchman.

I have not gone forward or back in time, but across in time, to something I might have been, playing itself out.

I know nothing of my biological parents. They live on a lost continent of DNA. Like Atlantis, all record of them is sunk. They are guesswork, speculation, mythology. The only proof I have of them is myself, and what proof is that, so many times written over? Written on the body is a secret code, only visible in certain lights. I do not know my time of birth. I am not entirely sure of the date. Having brought no world with me, I made one.

When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself. I lifted my hand in wonderment and felt my cheeks, my neck. This was me. And when I had looked at myself and grown accustomed to who I was, I was not afraid to hate parts of me because I wanted to be worthy of the mirror bearer. Then, when I had regarded myself for the first time, I regarded the world and saw it to be more various and beautiful than I thought.

It has taken me a long time to learn how to love - both the giving and the receiving.

It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.

That night, I knew I would get away, better myself. Not because I despised who I was, but because I did not know who I was. I was waiting to be invented. I was waiting to invent myself.

I am in love with her; not a fantasy or a myth or a creature of my own making. Her. A person who is not me. I invented Bonaparte as much as he invented himself. My passion for her, even though she could never return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and falling in love. The one is about you, the other about someone else.

I say I'm in love with her, what does that mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly she explains me to myself; like genius she is ignorant of what she does.

I became my own ladder and trapdoor to other worlds. I was my own disguise. The sight of a figure, far off, on some journey of his own, was enough to spark my imagination towards a tragedy or a miracle.

When I was born, I became the visible corner of a folded map. The map has more than one route. More than one destination. The map that is the unfolding self is not exactly leading anywhere. The arrow that says YOU ARE HERE is your first first coordinate. There is a lot you can't change when you are kid. But you can pack for the journey.

Why be happy when you could be normal ?

I am a hundred times happier in my solitude than I could be if I lived among them.

Hasta entonces me había hablado de mí solo, como a un niño; desde aquel momento empezó a tratarme como a un hombre, y me habló de sí misma. Me

Si hubiese sabido desprenderme del yugo de la amistad, como del de la opinión, hubiera logrado completamente mi objeto, quizá el más grande, o a lo menos el más útil para la virtud, que jamás mortal alguno haya concebido;

No hay día que no recuerde con gozo y ternura aquel único y breve tiempo de mi vida en que fui plenamente yo, sin mezcla y sin traba, y en que puedo realmente decir que he vivido.

Binbir yere baÄŸlanmaya çal???rken hepsi elimden kaç?p da kendi kendime kal?nca, dengemi yeniden buldum. Her yandan s?k??t?r?lmama kar??n o dengeyi koruyorsam, art?k hiçbir ÅŸeye baÄŸlanmad???mdan, yaln?zca kendime dayand???mdand?r.

En cuanto a mí, siempre que he deseado aprender ha sido para saber yo mismo y no para enseñar; siempre he creído que antes de enseñar a los demás era menester comenzar por saber lo bastante para sí, y, de todos los estudios que he intentado hacer en mi vida en medio de los hombres, apenas hay alguno que no hubiera hecho igualmente solo en una isla desierta en la que hubiera estado confinado para el resto de mis días.