Quotes About Self-reliance

I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them and then changed their minds.

I would rather live out on the desert alone, like an old prospector. All I needed was a small water source. What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.

Never apologize, never explain.

I learned, whatever you hung from my earlobes or out on my back, I was insoluble, like same in water. Stir me up, I always rest on the bottom

She never seemed more complete, more sure of herself. Not trying to please anyone anymore. Page 292

Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them and then changed their minds.

Only peons made excuses for themselves, she taught me. Never apologize, never explain.

Do I tell you how to braid your hair? Don't tell me how to plow a field.

I've never heard an agency say, 'Unless you industrialize I will not support you'.

I don't let other people tell me what to do. Well, unless it's my mum.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't need the affirmation or anything.

There is never hesitation about doing stand-up. It's just me doing my thing. Unlike being in a band or a play or something, I don't have to rely on anyone else but me.

I'm patient when it comes to my career, which is unlike me, but there are no stars in my eyes. I make where I go. It's that sort of thing.

Unlike any other star kid, I didn't have any A-grade launch. I just did whatever came my way.

Nobody is going to just come and give you money unless you've proven yourself, especially if you're doing something that is unconventional or unorthodox and outside the way the industry thinks.

By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.

The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn't have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.

When you're young, you don't have a lot of control over even basic things in your life - where you live, what you eat, where you go during the day, how you get there. You don't have a lot of control, and that can feel sort of unstable in its own way because you don't get a say in those basic things.

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.

I'm emotionally untouchable.

My knowledge of electrical subjects was not acquired in a methodical manner but was picked up from such books as I could get hold of and from such experiments as I could make with my own hands.

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.

One thing I'd tell an up-and-coming singer is to never rely on other people for anything. The more self-sufficient you can be, the better off you'll be.