Quotes About Independence

I mean that most people, married or single, stand inwardly alone

I'll have to become a good person on my own, without anyone to serve as a model or advise me, but it'll make me stronger in the end.

Sometimes old people have really old-fashioned ideas, but that doesn't mean I have to go along with them.

It didn't happen overnight. I've struggled long and hard and shed many tears to become as independent as I am now.

And yet they are coming from me. I want to take a fresh look at things and form my own opinion, not just ape my parents, as in the proverb 'The apple never falls far from the tree.

I didn't trust anyone but myself.

Every child has to raise itself." Parents can only advise their children or point them in the right direction. Ultimately, people shape their own characters.

She suddenly realized that there, ..., she had found something new about herself, discovered that she was a human being with feelings, thoughts and opinions of her own, a being separate from all others, a person in her own right

March 16, 1944 ...Kitty, Anne is crazy, but then these are crazy times and even crazier circumstances. March 17, 1944 Even though I'm only fourteen, I know what I want, I know who's right and who's wrong, I have my own opinions, ideas and principles, and though it may sound off coming from a teenager, I feel I'm more of a person than a child - I feel I'm completely independent of others.

Well, go on then, Abby; run along and let the nice man compromise you.

Write as if your parents are dead.

You have to be a warrior and say, Maybe it's everyone else's system, but it's not mine. (from her recent interview here, on Goodreads)

You've got to learn to let go and let your children fall, and fail. If you try to protect them from hurt, and always rush to their side with Band-Aids, they won't learn about life, and what is true, what works, what helps, and what are real consequences of certain kinds of behavior. When they do get hurt, which they will, they won't know how to take care of their grown selves. They won't even know where the aspirin is kept.

The single most radical thing I know . . . is that I get to take care of myself.

who as a young person, like me, accepted being alone quite a lot. I think that this sort of person often becomes either a writer or a career criminal.

I suspect that he was a child who thought differently than his peers, who may have had serious conversations with grown-ups, who as a young person, like me, accepted being alone quite a lot. I think that this sort of person often becomes either a writer or a career criminal.

The harm is in the unwanted help or helping them when they need to figure things out for themselves. Help is the sunny side of control.

What those people think of me is none of my business.

We cannot arrange lasting safety or happiness for our most beloved people. They have to find their own ways, their own answers.

You can't run alongside your grown children with sunscreen and ChapStick on their hero's journey." -- Anne Lamott, "Twelve Truths I Learned from Writing to Life

Queens can, too, fly," she blurted out, daring him. His grin broadening to suffuse his face, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her an affectionate shake. "Of course they can fly," he assured her, his voice full of pride and respect. "That's why they have wings!

but she wouldn't have been a Cat Person if she had not.

What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!

Woman must come of age by herself. This is the essence of coming of age -to learn how to stand alone.