Quotes About Self

People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.

Why be a man when you can be a success.

A Man lives off his head. His head won't see him through. Inspect your own— What lives on that? At most, a louse or two . . .

Er hatte erkannt, dass er selber ein Kahn war

Vanity is a motive of immense potency.

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

A man bears the weight of his own body without knowing it, but he soon feels the weight of any other object. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that a man cannot forget- but not himself.

Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in.

For all the practical purposes of Yoga, the man, the working, conscious man, is so much of him as he cannot separate from the matter enclosing him, or with which he is connected. Only that is body which the man is able to put aside and say: "This is not I, but mine."

We dare not call ourselves spiritual until we have reached that point which none of us as yet has reached, for to reach it means to become a Christ.

We all seek approval, and our mother's seal is usually the most important. The nitty gritty is that we have to accept ourselves, even if it is just to be ready for the next cut-down. Mom's blessing or not.

Were there language, I'd be my own lone letter.

Teaching memoir is teaching vulnerability is teaching voice is teaching self.

A memoir is never right. Nor is the memoirist.

The self is woke and abnegating, line crossing and navigating, more-or-less list making, marked by the immediate and bent by the scene, the superimposition of other people's dreams, and I remembered the essence of a note I had written to a former student, now a man: But might your happiness be more than all the ways you work to make other people happy? Might you soon belong to you?

Might you soon belong to you?

Get out of the way of your story.

You have to believe that, someday, you will be your own second coming.

There is only one thing to know. The manat is *you.* A little skin and bone to keep the sea out—but you are its weight, its balance. You and I.

I]t's the child writer who has figured out, early on, that writing is about saving your soul.

Voice comes from a moment beyond the alienation of culture, it is heard before there is an "I" to listen to it.

Having an orgasm with a new fantasy is every bit as good as having sex with a new lover. Some times it's even hotter. People can be so unpredictable, but I can always count on myself.

As a number of scientists have noted, research on the human brain is complicated by the fact that the brain is struggling to understand itself. This three-pound organ is perhaps the only bit of matter in the universe—at least as far as we know—that is observing itself, wondering about itself, trying to analyze itself, and attempting to gain better control of its own capabilities.

The bottom line is, I'm blessed with good health. On top of that, I don't go around thinking 'Oh, I'm 90, I better do this or I better do that.' I'm just Betty. I'm the same Betty that I've always been. Take it or leave it.