Quotes About Self-awareness

They say I have a face for radio and a voice for newspapers, ha ha, so please don't be frightened, ha ha.

Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true.

The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer.

The only person who can tell you, who you are, is just you.

I'm twenty-six," she said, as if it were bad news she had received only recently. "It isn't the age I feel like." "What age do you feel like?" "Nineteen -- like you." But, to me, nineteen still felt old and somehow alien to who I was. It occurred to me that it might take more than a year -- maybe as many as seven years -- to learn to feel nineteen.

In fact I had no such interest, but I knew it was wrong to do things just because other people did. Other people couldn't be the reason why you did anything.

The eternal pauper in the great marketplace of ideas and of the world, I had nothing to teach anyone. I didn't have anything anyone wanted.

I learned a lot from that, like how much it hurt to see how other people described you, and how things that you said about another person, especially your parents, seemed neutral when addressed to a third party, but lethal when you thought about your parents reading it.

It's hard to be sincere without sounding pretentious," she said. "I mean, what are you supposed to do if you really happen to feel like you've swallowed the universe? Not say so?

Definitely there are times when I'm tired and don't want to give up my seat on the bus to an old person. But I get depressed, not angry—like about how I'll be an old woman someday, and even more tired than I am now. I never think I deserve the seat more because I am reading a book." Worried this might sound self-righteous, I added, "Maybe it's just because I dont' read on the bus, it makes me carsick.

I'm 26," she said, as if it were bad news she had received only recently. "It isn't the age I feel like." "What age do you feel like?" "Nineteen, like you." But to me, 19 still felt old and somehow alien to who I was. It occurred to me that it might take more than a year, maybe as many as seven years, to learn to feel 19.

It's so hard to be sincere without sounding pretentious. I mean, what are you supposed to do if you really happen to feel like you've swallowed the universe? Not say so?

I felt dissatisfied, as if I was failing to capitalize on some advantage I had from "being" Turkish—one that would compensate for the hassle of having a name and appearance that had always required explanation. It had, I realized, been a real disappointment to get to Turkey and to discover that my name and appearance still required constant explanation

Deep down I have a talent for well-being. I can feel it.

I was going to do the subtle, monstrous thing where you figured out what you were doing and why.

I'm still a little bent, a little crooked, but all things considered, I can't complain.

The mirror will only lie, when you look at it through a mask.

Gape long enough into a looking glass and you'll eventually see beauty. The same can be said of self-analysis, and as soon as one apes oneself, a second monkey is born.

Just because one is born in sin is no reason to brag about it.

Any psyche, conscious of itself, will revolt against the shape, size or color of the body in which it dwells; this is healthy—for that body, in fact, not only reminds the psyche of its mortality, it deprives it of its individuality, binding it to a group. Accordingly, crimes of racial violence outrage not only the victims, but all individuals. Apathy, in this case, is a sad indication that you are not an individual.

Reflection is nothing more than what it sounds, and pondering one's own life is about as productive as talking to one's image in a mirror: both acts are egocentric and neither produces a dialog. People who talk to themselves in public are not self-actualized; they're crazy.

The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives

Your first discovery when you travel," wrote Elizabeth Hardwick, "is that you do not exist." In other words, it is not just the others who have been left behind; it is all of you that is known. Gone is the power or punishment of your family name, the hard-earned reputations of forebears, no

through the miracle of consciousness, the human psyche provides the mirror in which Nature sees herself reflected.