„I was trying to prove to them and to myself that I was still who I had always been. I was beautiful, if fat. I was smart, if loud. I was good, if ruined.“

— Alice Sebold, book Lucky

Source: Lucky

Last update June 3, 2021.

Alice Sebold60

American writer 1963

Related quotes

„For months I had been trying to be less myself.“

— Amanda Filipacchi, book Vapor

first line.
Vapor (1999)

„I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself.“

— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994

Drink

„I don't always feel lucky, but I'm smart enough to try.“

— Ani DiFranco musician and activist 1970

Grand Canyon
Song lyrics

Feeling

„When I was a boy I was always depressed and confused, now I think I'm not garbage. I don't try to prove to my parents that I am good at something anymore. But I am a failure with women. I can only be a one night lover.“

— Vincent Gallo American film director, writer, model, actor and musician 1961

GIOIA Magazine Interview

Women, Boy, Lovers, Failure

„My education was very intensive and I applied that training later on to playing the piano. I had always played, but having no one to compare myself to, I had no idea if I was any good.“

— Joanna MacGregor British musician 1959

The Express on Sunday, 06/01/2002
Childhood

Education, Idea, Training

„If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for a while. But the fact that I an exceeding my limits will eventually have consequences. I will distort myself, the other, and our relationship—and may end up doing more damage than if I had never set out to do this particular “good.”“

— Parker Palmer American theologian 1939

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), p. 47

„Louis deliberately chose someone who hadn’t been to university because theories of animal behaviour at that time were very rigid, and Louis didn’t want someone whose mind was biased in that way. Wise man. But still I had the responsibility to prove myself. I remember looking up at the hills and wondering, “Can I do it?”“

— Jane Goodall British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934

Wanderlust interview (2009)

Way, Universe, Time, Animals

„I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all good things still in my life.“

— Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Life, Cry

„It’s good to be 18. For a long time I felt like I was fighting my age, like I was constantly trying to prove to people that I was a savvy peer, and I felt them viewing me as a kid. I was a cocky kid, and I felt like I was an adult at, like, 9, you know? I think that’s because my parents always treated me as an adult.“

— Ezra Miller American actor 1992

Interview, Interview Magazine, 2010 http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/ezra-miller/#_

People, Age, Thinking, Parent

„Four years was enough of Harvard. I still had a lot to learn, but had been given the liberating notion that now I could teach myself.“

— John Updike American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic 1932 - 2009

Life Magazine (September 1986)

Learning

„I never used any outside influence to advance my career. All I had was the inner urge to seek more within myself. The key to my motivation has always been to look at how far I had still to go rather than how far I had come.“

— A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 140.

Motivation

„In a sense, I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself.“

— Haruki Murakami, book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Sense

„Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.“

— Maggie Nelson American writer 1973

Source: Bluets

Sadness, Beauty

„I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.“

— John Keats English Romantic poet 1795 - 1821

To Fanny Brawne (c. February 1820)
Letters (1817–1820)
Context: "If I should die," said I to myself, "I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered."

Love, Beauty, Time

„I was not trying to be smart when I did that. I was trying to tell them that they could do whatever they want. The fans of Pittsburgh have cheered me a lot through the years. There’s always a first time for booing. But I don’t say to hell with the fans because of this. I am not swinging the bat the way I should. It is just one of those things. I am not the way I should be. I do not feel sure when I swing. I am trying to adjust so that I will swing well even though my shoulder still hurts. If a player doesn’t try hard, he deserves to be booed. I try hard. Maybe I was booed today because I have not played that bad before.“

— Roberto Clemente Puerto Rican baseball player 1934 - 1972

As quoted in “Clemente Still Loves Pirate Fans” https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kWwqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VlAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3630%2C5689009 by Bill Christine, in The Pittsburgh Press (Monday, April 14, 1969), p. 32
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1969</big>

Way, Feeling, Hell, Time

„I could always try MIT and then kill myself later if it was that bad but that I couldn't commit suicide and then try MIT afterwards.“

— Murray Gell-Mann American physicist 1929 - 2019

"The Making of a Physicist : A Talk with Murray Gell-Mann" at Edge.org (2003) http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gell-mann03/gell-mann_print.html.
Context: I thought of killing myself but soon decided that I could always try MIT and then kill myself later if it was that bad but that I couldn't commit suicide and then try MIT afterwards. The two operations, suicide and going to MIT, don't commute...

Suicide