“Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.”
Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist
"And God Smiles," sermon preached at All Saints Church, Pasadena, California (6 November 2005)
Context: This family has no outsiders. Everyone is an insider. When Jesus said, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw..." Did he say, "I will draw some"? "I will draw some, and tough luck for the others"? He said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all." All! All! All! – Black, white, yellow; rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful. All! All! It is radical. All! Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bush – all! All! All are to be held in this incredible embrace. Gay, lesbian, so-called "straight;" all! All! All are to be held in the incredible embrace of the love that won’t let us go.
“Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.”
Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist
Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer
Source: God-Shaped Hole
Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Oskar during a visit to his therapist, Dr. Fein
"Happiness, Happiness" (p. 201)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: "I feel too much. That's what's going on." "Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel the wrong ways? "My insides don't match up with my outsides." "Do anyone's inside and outsides match up?" "I don't know. I'm only me." "Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside." "But it's worse for me." "I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him." "Probably. But it really is worse for me."
Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic
Quoted in: Richard Roud, Godard, introduction (1967, repr. 1970).
“I’m calm on the outside and a flood inside.”
Trinny Woodall (1964) English fashion advisor and designer, television presenter and author
Retail therapists (2007)
Elmer Eric Schattschneider (1892–1971) American political scientist
Source: Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government (1969), p. 24