Quotes About Self-perception

I suddenly have two stomachs—a regular tummy and another one below that, which I call the subcontinent. This older body is both amazingly healthy and a big disappointment.

I don't like myself you know. I love myself. I'm devoted to myself till my dying day. But I don't like myself.

What did it show of me? A long oval face, with features that were too delicate-a nose too narrow, eyes round with round eyebrows and a full cupid's bow mouth that made me look as if I were a twelve-year-old girl. No huge eyes, no high cheekbones, no rugged jaw. Just very pretty, yes, too pretty, which is why I'd scowled for most of the photographs taken for the portrait; but the artist hadn't saved that scowl into the face.

She stopped. Foolish, hurtful thoughts. Why was it that she was the one who was so cruel to herself? No one else, save perhaps her mother, long ago, had ever made her feel ugly. And last night, this morning, Kilmartyn had made her feel… radiant.

The first thing I tell people is, I'm just an ordinary woman. I'm just like you, I say, I can see they don't believe me.

If you ask a twenty-one-year-old poet whose poetry he likes, he might say, unblushing, Nobody's, In his youth, he has not yet understood that poets like poetry, and novelists like novels; he himself likes only the role, the thought of himself in a hat.

My whole life, I always thought that I was the only impostor. That everyone else was certain they were real in some way that I could never understand. But what if they're all just faking too? Maybe none of us know who we really are.

Sometimes I think I'm nothing but what other people have done to me

Pretty? Think again." She smiled. "I'm Tally Youngblood. My mind is very ugly. And I'm taking your car.

It didn't matter what you looked like. It was how you carried yourself, how you saw yourself.

It didn't matter what you looked like. It was how you carried yourself, how you saw yourself. Strength and reflexes were only part of it—Shay simply knew that she was special, and so she was. Everyone else was just wallpaper

You're still yourself on the inside, Shay. But when you're pretty, people pay more attention." "Not everyone thinks that way.

Tally closed her eyes, remembering what having a pretty mind was like—everything vague and fuzzy, the world nothing but a source of entertainment, the future nothing but a blur. A few tricks weren't enough to make everyone bubbly, she supposed; you had to want your mind to change. Maybe some people had always been pretty-heads

Stevie can't, I imagine. Stevie wouldn't really want to. She would always dress up as flamboyantly as possible when she went out, so she'd be noticed. She's a different kind of person than I am. People are appreciating me for the reasons I want to be appreciated for, and not for my chiffon gown. [Laughs]

we are never old to ourselves. That is because at the close of the day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body.

Sometimes, we can't trust our own vision. We have to see the good another sees in us.

It's important that they developed the habit of identity. When they looked in the mirror, they saw themselves as musicians, as artists, as people who had committed to a journey.

It is not a good idea to call yourself a sardine in a family like Leo's, who will not let you forget it.

Living in a story of a limited self—to any degree—is not love.

Do you think I'm pretty?" Smitty glanced away from the computer screen he'd been staring at for the last three hours, looked at his sister, and shook his head. "No." "What do ya mean no?" "You asked. Sorry if you didn't like the answer. I always thought you were funny lookin'. Asked momma, 'What is that thing laying in your bed?' And she said, 'I found it hiding under a car, you be nice to it now.

I would guess, perhaps too optimistically, that nearly ever racist believes it is morally wrong to be racist. And since nearly every person thinks of themselves as being moral, then a racist must consciously and subconsciously employ tortured logic in order to explain away their racism--in order to believe themselves to be nonracist.

I pretended I belonged.

Hello," my doctor said. "Are you there?" "Yes," I said. "So, what's going on?" "There are irregularities in your head." "My head's always been wrong

It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.