Quotes about yourself
page 13

“You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

"My Neighbor's Son"
To My Daughters, With Love (1967)

Feeling

“Oh, good. You're starting to talk about yourself in the third person. That's not a sign of impending megalomania or anything.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Personality

“A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Thinking, Time

“You know you're a hot mess when the only person buying you drinks all night is yourself.”

Chelsea Handler (1975) American comedian, actress, author and talk show host

Drink, Personality, Night

“Expectation wasn't just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

People

“Anyone can be crazy. That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

Hate, Suicide

“You cannot enjoy others until you
enjoy yourself because you cannot give to others what you do not have.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Source: 25 Ways to Win with People: How to Make Others Feel Like a Million Bucks

“To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Basic Writings: Martin Heidegger

World, Star, Thinking

“The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Courage, For Bestfriend

“Yeah, you're sitting in a tree because you're. That's easy to see. I can't believe this is, destroyer of despots, warrior hottie, leader of the flock! All you need now to make yourself more pathetic is a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream!”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Tree

“Aha," Andrea said. "I'm going to ignore that you just referred to yourself as 'sugar woogums'.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Teachers

“Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

War

“Hey, Clary. You take care of yourself," he said. "I know you can." He paused. "And take care of Jace, that poor, helpless blond."
Jace made an obscene gesture, which actually did feel familiar to Simon, so he knew that was their thing.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy

Feeling

“It is not possible that you could ever find yourself anywhere where God was not fully present, fully active, able and willing to set you free.”

Emmet Fox (1886–1951) American New Thought writer

Source: Find and Use Your Inner Power

God

“Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes.”

Pearl Cleage What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

Source: What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

Learning, Chance, Parting

“There's something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

“But if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love, Truth, Time

“If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Fight

“Always be true to your friends, just as you are to yourself.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Glitter Girls and the Great Fake-Out

“To give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

“I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me.
But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“You get older and you learn there is one sentence just four worlds long and if you can say it to yourself it offers more comfort than almost any other. It goes like this… Ready ”
“Ready.”
“At least I tried.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

World, Learning

“If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”

Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney

Source: Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

Personality

“Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 9
Context: Bit by bit, at 124 and in the Clearing, along with others, she had claimed herself. Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

For women

“What remains of your past if you didn't allow yourself to feel it when it happened? If you don't have your experiences in the moment, if you gloss them over with jokes or zoom past them, you end up with curiously dispassionate memories.”

David Rakoff (1964–2012) writer

Source: Fraud: Essays

Feeling, Memory, Past

“There are moments in your life when you see yourself through someone else’s eyes, when your only hope of believing you’re capable of doing something is because someone else believes it for you.”

Marc Acito (1966) American novelist, humorist, screenwriter

Source: How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater

Life, Hope

“I think when you’re young you should be a lot with yourself and your sufferings. Then one day you get out where the sun shines and the rain rains and the snow snows and it all comes together.”

Diana Vreeland (1903–1989) American magazine editor

Thinking, Suffering, Sun

“You have to learn how to help a wounded child while still practicing mindful breathing. You should not allow yourself to get lost in action. Action should be meditation at the same time.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Learning, Time, Help

“Their mother had always stressed the importance of taking care of yourself first, your family second and everyone else not at all..

darkest surrender”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Family

“It was a joy! Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Pain, Hope, Feeling, Reading

“They all have always loved you, Will Herondale, for you cannot hide what is good about yourself, however hard you try.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love

“The more you try to simplify things the more you complicate them. You create rules, build walls, push people away, lie to yourself and ignore true feelings. That is not simplifying things.”

Cecelia Ahern book If You Could See Me Now

Source: If You Could See Me Now

People, Lie, Feeling

“She gave her a reason to write her own words, to see that words had also brought her to life.
"Don't punish yourself," she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Life, Pain, Happiness

“You refuse to own yourself, you permit others to do it for you”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

“Deal with yourself as a individual, worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Way

“Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self.

Don't limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Water

“Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it's at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.”

Sam Levenson (1911–1980) American journalist

Help

“The thing about light is that it really isn’t yours; it’s what you gather and shine back. And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you sit still and take it in, it fills your cup, and then you can give it off yourself.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Light

“We have a name for your disease. We call it a hyper-aesthetic one. You have been encouraged to over-indulge yourself in literature; and have inflamed your organs of fancy.”

Sarah Waters book Fingersmith

Source: Fingersmith

Disease, Literature

“Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Source: On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History

World

“When you sit right down in the middle of yourself you're gonna wanna have a comfortable chair.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

“You're Only the fairest when your fairest to yourself”

Gail Carson Levine (1947) American writer

“We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Thinking, Personality

“Find the goddess inside yourself instead of looking for the god in someone else.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Necklace of Kisses

God

“Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

“It is a do-it-yourself era: health care, real estate, police investigation. Go online and f*ing figure it out for yourself because everyone’s overworked and understaffed.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Health

“The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Children, Confidence, Horse

“You can, t make yourself happy by causing other peoples misery

-Tyler Perry
The Family That Preys”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

Variant: Are You Living or Just Existing?"

-Tyler Perry
The Family That Preys

Happiness, People, Family

“Plant seeds of expectation in your mind; cultivate thoughts that anticipate achievement. Believe in yourself as being capable of overcoming all obstacles and weaknesses.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

“Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?”

Connie Willis Bellwether

Source: Bellwether (1996), Chapter 3 “Tributaries”, Section 3 (p. 119)

Thinking

“There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead. You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction. These people with dead children, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself. There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

Love, Children, People, Books

“You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Hunger

“Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

Fear, Jealousy, Training

“This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.”

Michael Cunningham book A Home at the End of the World

Source: A Home at the End of the World

Future

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew i would never see it again?”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Way

“Hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Feeling

“He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Variant: Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 25
Context: While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water — laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

World, Hurt

“By understanding the nuances of the world around you and how to survive the temptations, you can rule anything. Even yourself”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

World, Understanding

“No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change”

Barbara De Angelis (1951) American psychologist

Life, Happiness, Change, Happy

“I knew from the moment I heard you, the moment I saw the gun and realized that this lovely, petit woman was the executioner, that you would never die waiting for me to save you - that you would save yourself.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Narcissus in Chains

Source: Narcissus in Chains

Love, Waiting

“Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.”

D.H. Lawrence book Women in Love

Source: Women in Love

World

“Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Feeling

“What have you gotten me into?" I hissed at him.
"Me? What have you gotten yourself into? Couldn't I have just picked you up at the police station for underage drinking, like most fathers?”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Drink

“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 7: Time
Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Change, Time, Business

“Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

Change

“I won’t be the reason you don’t go to him. I won’t be your excuse. You’ve got to see for yourself, or you’l never be able to let him go

Jeremiah Fisher”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

“Don't forget to love yourself.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Variant: ..... love yourself.

Love, Forgetting

“Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Attitude

“I used to believe my father about everything but then I had children myself & now I see how much stuff you make up just to keep yourself from going crazy.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Children

“You'll have to ask Bill that, Sookie. And this is the only reason we're going? You're not cleverly using
this as an excuse to make out with me?"
"I'm not that clever, Eric."
"I think you deceive yourself, Sookie," Eric said with a brilliant smile.”

Charlaine Harris book Living Dead in Dallas

Source: Living Dead in Dallas

Smile, Thinking

“You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Parent

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go…”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Variant: You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go.
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Shoe, Inspirational

“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to
self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt,
that's real power.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

Effort

“Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Money

“The gods only go with you if you put yourself in their path. And that takes courage.”

Mary Stewart book The Crystal Cave

Source: The Crystal Cave

God, Courage

“You’ll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you’re still the one in control.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

“… even a mirror will not show you yourself, if you do not wish to see.”

Roger Zelazny Lord of Light

Source: Lord of Light

“You make some big grandoise decision about what you need to do, or who you need to be, and then circumstances arise that immediately reveal to you how little you understood about yourself.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Decision

“Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing.”

Stephen King book Lisey's Story

Source: Lisey's Story

Lying, Housing

“Life is a spiritual dance and that our unseen partner has steps to teach us if we will allow ourselves to be led. The next time you are restless, remind yourself it is the universe asking 'Shall we dance?”

Julia Cameron (1948) American writer

Life, Universe, Time, Dance

“You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.”

Maxwell Maltz (1889–1975) Plastic surgeon, self-help author

Source: Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life

Personality

“The point is, you see," said Ford, "that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

Madness

“If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

Money, Happiness, Thinking

“Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: The Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Time

“You have to laugh at yourself sometimes, cause you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't.”

Emily Saliers (1963) singer-songwriter, restaurateur

Cry

“Never invest yourself in anything so deeply that its failure could cost you your happiness.”

Ian Caldwell book The Rule of Four

Source: The Rule of Four

Happiness, Failure

“Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture… Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.”

Norman Vincent Peale book The Power of Positive Thinking

Source: The Power of Positive Thinking

Imagination

“I've read that if an avalanche buries you and you're lying there underneath all that snow, you can't tell which way is up or down. You want to dig yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to your own demise.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Way, Lying, Reading

“Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

“If you insist on trying to get yourself killed, I insist on being the one who chooses what you wear while you recover”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Luke Garroway, Clary Fray, and Jocelyn Fray, pg. 221-222
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)
Context: Clary looked down at herself. She was wearing a pair of flannel pajamas, too short in the leg and tight in the chest, with fire trucks on them.
Luke raised an eyebrow. 'I think those were mine when I was a kid.'
'You can't seriously tell me there wasn't anything else you could have put me in.'
'If you insist on trying to get yourself killed, I insist on being the one who chooses what you wear while you recover,' Jocelyn said with a tiny smirk.
'The pajamas of vengeance,' Clary muttered.