Quotes About Self-assertion

I deny everything and affirm naught but myself: because the sole truth of which I have material and moral proof and tangible, comprehensible and intelligible evidence, the only real, startling, non-arbitrary truth not susceptible to interpretation, is myself. I am. There I have a positive fact. Everything else is abstraction and, in mathematics, would be designated as "x", and unknown quantity; and I need not trouble myself with it.

Doing my own album provided me the opportunity to say whatever I wanted.

I have spent most of my adult life proving that I existed. A blog is an accessible way of doing this - there is a date and place in cyberspace that I existed a year ago, to the day, and the proof is still there.

I'm not anybody's puppet.

I had a desire to prove to myself that I was actually in control - that I wasn't a puppet.

I had to learn not to let anyone push me around, to be brave and to say things I knew might make people mad.

Being able to express yourself under the name Erika Jayne and saying things people want to say but wouldn't, or doing things that people want to do but don't, or taking that extra leap of faith or pushing the levels of sexuality, or whatever, that helps Erika Girardi stand on her own two feet and be calm and peaceful.

There's definitely been times where there's stuff that I have not been comfortable with, and I've had to put my foot down.

You can find things about me you don't like. And frankly, I don't want to hear it.

And, I think, for those of us who came of age with the women's movement, there's always the fear that it's not real, you're not really allowed to determine your own life. It may be pulled back at any moment.

And when all feels hopeless, remember that you are in charge of what goes into your body, you don't answer to anyone, and you are allowed to eat anything you want. Often just knowing we can eat whatever we want is enough to keep us from eating whatever we want. We're so rebellious.

My petunias," she tells me in a flat voice, "are none of your business.

Life was too damned short to constantly push your own desires down and always do what others wanted. On

a lesson crucial to those who wanted to tackle the upper reaches of a profession like law or medicine: if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires (151).

if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires.

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.

Don't let anyone tell your story. Pick up a pen and write your own.

I can only tell you that my surroundings are me. Everything is me, because I have rejected all conventions, the opinion of the world, all its laws. I am not obliged, as you and Jeanne are, to play a social role.

A structure can enable promotion. And if you challenge those structures, you are the one who becomes self-promotional.

I am not here to entertain straight people.

I'm gonna tell you honest that I'll shoot you without battin' an eye. I'm sick and tired of you boys thinkin' you can have me just for the askin'. Hell, most of you don't even ask - you just grab. I've had it, do you hear?

A patient can have as many diagnoses as [she] damn well pleases.

I know by now you think I should have straightened myself out - Thank you, drop dead!

Spark asks whether men or women are in the driver's seat and whether the power to choose one's destroyer is women's only form of self-assertion.