“We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.”

—  Douglas Coupland

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it …" by Douglas Coupland?
Douglas Coupland photo
Douglas Coupland 193
Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and grap… 1961

Related quotes

Laura Esquivel photo

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves”

Laura Esquivel book Like Water for Chocolate

Source: Like Water for Chocolate

Anatole France photo

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

Anatole France book The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

Tous les changements, même les plus souhaités ont leur mélancolie, car ce que nous quittons, c'est une partie de nous-mêmes; il faut mourir à une vie pour entrer dans une autre.
Pt. II, ch. 4
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

Tommy Orange photo

“Some of us got this feeling stuck inside, all the time, like we’ve done something wrong. Like we ourselves are something wrong … We drink alcohol because it helps us feel like we can be ourselves and not be afraid. But we punish ourselves with it.”

Tommy Orange book There There

There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo, There There by Tommy Orange review – Native American stories, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/18/there-there-tommy-orange-review, 9 August 2018, The Guardian, July 18, 2018]

“We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”

Liam Callanan American writer

Source: The Cloud Atlas

“We have to place ourselves in the right environment that helps us and allows us to become the greatest versions of ourselves.”

Ralph Smart
John Gray photo

“The unalterable character with which Schopenhauer and sometimes Conrad believed all humans are born may not exist; but we cannot help looking within ourselves to account for what we do. All we find are fragments, like memories of a novel we once read.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Deception: Lord Jim's Jump (p. 68)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

John Banville photo

“We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.”

John Banville The Sea

Source: The Sea

Christopher Marlowe photo

“If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.”

Christopher Marlowe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Source: Dr. Faustus

“We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look in to ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Related topics