Quotes about yourself
page 14

“If you make your heart into a weapon, you end up using it on yourself.”

Gregory David Roberts (1952) Australian writer and bank robber

“Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

World, Change, Personality

“Losing hope is not so bad. There's something worse: losing hope and hiding it from yourself.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

Source: The Moviegoer

Hope

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”

Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

People

“After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 1

Business, Holiday, Parting

“How easy it is to be compassionate when it's yourself you see in trouble.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“I mean putting yourself out there in the way of overwhelming happiness and knowing you're also putting yourself in the way of terrible harm. I'm scared to be this happy. I'm scared to be this extreme.”

Ann Brashares The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Happiness, Way

“What if the puzzle of the world was a shape you didn't fit into? And the only way to survive was to mutilate yourself, carve away your corners, sand yourself down, modify yourself to fit? How come we haven't been able to change the puzzle instead?”

Jodi Picoult book Small Great Things

Source: Small Great Things

World, Way, Change

“Let things be, let yourself be, let everything be and accept it as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

“Never do I deceive you, Hastings. I only permit you to deceive yourself.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Hercule Poirot’s Early Cases (1974)
Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

“You may protest if you can love the person you are protesting against as much as you love yourself.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

Love, Personality

“if you tell yourself you feel fine, you will.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Feeling, Positive

“You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. find yourself a mirror while I continue.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Help

“I don't know why it's called "getting lost." Even when you turn down the wrong street, when you find yourself at the dead end of a chain-link fence or a road that turnd to sand, you are somewhere. It just isn't where you expected to be.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Dead

“When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Variant: If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

“Miles and years become suddenly invisible when you find yourself back where you started from, as if you've learned nothing and you are once again the person you once were.”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Source: The Memory of Water

Learning, Personality

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Variant: Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

Fear, Freedom

“Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.”

Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist

Source: Sunday in the Park With George

Art

“If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Sense

“Once you've recognized your own limits, you've raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you're closer to the real you…”

Banana Yoshimoto (1964) Japanese writer

“Always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, Sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Life, Smile, Beauty, Heartbreaking

“If you don't want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself. You're taking up space, air.”

Dave Eggers book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Source: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

“Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Self-Reliance and Other Essays

“Be authentic. Don't try to be someone you aren't. You'll hate yourself for it & the effort to maintain the facade will exhaust you. BE REAL! Many won't like the real you but that's better than having people adore the person that isn't you at all”

Larry Winget (1952) American motivational speaker

Hate, People, Effort, Personality

“There's no way to release yourself from a memory. It ends when it wants to end, whether it's in a flash or long after you've begged it to stop.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

Way, Memory

“Expressing yourself when he takes for granted doesn't work.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble. It is not safe. I had learnt to use my fears as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks, and”

Robyn Davidson (1950) Australian writer

Source: Tracks

Fear, Learning

“I want you to have big dreams, big goals. I want you to strive to achieve them. But I don't want to see you beating yourself up every time you make a mistake.”

Kelley Armstrong The Gathering

Source: The Gathering

Dreams, Time

“Home was not the place where you were born but the place you created yourself, where you did not need to explain, where you finally became what you were.”

Dermot Bolger (1959) Irish writer

Source: The Journey Home

Home

“Four: If you try to force yourself into my head, I will force myself into your pants.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

“There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be. You are too young to know this. You are still becoming. Not being.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

Life, Time

“Weren't you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren't you supposed to be saving yourself?" Shanti asked.

"Yeah," Mary Lou answered. "And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is not a leftover, and it is not a Christmas present.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Sex, Christmas

“You know who you belong to, Jack?”
“Yeah.”
“Yourself.”
He’s wrong, actually, I belong to Ma.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Source: Room

“If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Feelings are your guide. Trust your feelings and learn to express them, and do not blame anyone for how you feel. Be yourself, observe yourself. Look to understand any crisis you have been in or will be in.”

Barbara Marciniak (1928–2012)

Source: Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living

Feeling, Understanding, Learning

“Isn't there a mirror someplace where you can go admire yourself?"
"I never knew a woman so hung up on my good looks."
"All your women are hung up on your good looks. They just pretend it's your personality.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: This Heart of Mine

Women, Personality

“Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else.
Even when there is no one.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 7 (pp. 39-40)
Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“Relationship Principle 5
Don't believe what anyone tells you about yourself.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Variant: Don't believe what anyone tells you about yourself.
Source: Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart

“As I recall, I was still dressed when I fell asleep."

"Just making sure you were comfortable."

"And making yourself equally comfortable, I see.”

Kelley Armstrong book Bitten

Source: Bitten

“Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it's time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.”

Bill Moyers (1934) American journalist

Freedom, Time

“You cannot friend a hawk, they said, unless you are a hawk yourself, alone and only a sojourner in the land, without friends or the need of them.”

Stephen King book The Gunslinger

Source: The Gunslinger

“When you're at peace with yourself and love your self, it is virtually impossible to do things to yourself that are destructive.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Love, Peace

“Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.' So I figured it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had.”

Rebecca Stead book When You Reach Me

Source: When You Reach Me

Personality

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Source: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Self Reliance

Peace, Peaceful

“It was the kind of love that, sooner or later, cornered you into a choice: either you tore free or you stayed and withstood its rigor even as it squeezed you into something smaller than yourself.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Love

“Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Life

“to fight for each minute is to
fight for what is possible within
yourself,
so that your life and your death
will not be like
theirs.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Life, Death, Fight

“Always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will?

Heartbreaking, Inspirational, Life, love

“I read somewhere… how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong… to measure yourself at least once.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Life, Feeling, Strong, Reading

“If you let people break your spirit and detour you from your path, then you have not been true to yourself or those you're here to touch, those who believe in you.”

Allison DuBois (1972) American psychic

People

“Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”

Zadie Smith (1975) British writer

Truth, Sadness

“It's so much easier to convince yourself you're madly in love with someone when you know nothing about him.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Second Helpings

Love

“And I would do it again. I love you, Jace Wayland-Herondale-Lightwood-whatever you want to call yourself. I don't care. I love you and I will always love you, and pretending it could be any other ways is just a waste of time.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, Way, Time

“How do you go on knowing that you will never again - not ever, ever - see the person you have loved? How do you survive a single hour, a single minute, a single second of that knowledge? How do you hold yourself together?”

Howard Jacobson book The Finkler Question

Source: The Finkler Question

Love, Knowledge, Personality

“The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.”

Bruce D. Perry (1955) American psychiatrist

Source: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

Love, Truth

“Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Maxim 52, p. 259
Maxims for Her Nuns (1963)
Source: Complete Works St. Teresa Of Avila, Volume III

Love, Soul

“Just because you’re grown up and then some doesn’t mean settling into the doldrums of predictability. Surprise people. Surprise yourself. (281)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

People

“You gotta be able to explain things to yourself when the lights go off and you get in the bed. You gotta deal with you at the end of the day.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Light

“Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Freedom, Light

“Nothing is more intolerable than to have admit to yourself your own errors.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Error

“When you believe that you are not worthwhile in and of yourself, in the back of your mind you also begin to believe that life is not worthwhile in and of itself. It is only worthwhile insofar as it relates to your crusade. It is a kamikaze mission.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Life

“It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“You’re better than this, Adrian. Whatever the reason, you’re better than it. Don’t trick yourself into thinking you’re weaker than you are”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

Thinking

“I think you don't grow up until you stop worrying about other people's purposes or lack of them and find the purposes you believe in for yourself.”

Orson Scott Card book Xenocide

Source: Xenocide

People, Thinking

“So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman : The Killing Joke (1988)
Source: Batman: The Killing Joke
Context: When you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened.
Forever.

Past, Training, Madness

“Free again, but it's just a feeling; freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit yourself to what is best for you.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Variant: Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.
Source: The Zahir

Feeling, Freedom

“But somethings in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”

Jon Krakauer (1954) American outdoors writer and journalist

Life, Happiness, Thinking

“Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Fools

“Perhaps loneliness had nothing to do with place or circumstance; perhaps it was in you; yourself. Perhaps, wherever you were, you took your little circle of loneliness with you…”

Mary Stewart book Nine Coaches Waiting

Source: Nine Coaches Waiting

Loneliness

“I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back.”

Robyn Davidson (1950) Australian writer

Source: Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

Feeling

“The truth is that, no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter how good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Life, Truth, Game

“If you try to be anyone but yourself, you will fail; if you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there's no success like failure”

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

Failure, Success, Heart

“The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don’t die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005)

People

“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.”

John Jakes (1932) American historical novelist and fantasy writer

“You're a girl. Someday you'll want to be a prisoner to someone other than yourself.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Girl

“the only thing you need to
do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do
know the answer”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“Advice for a human

86. To like something is to insult it. Love it or hate it. Be passionate. As civilisation advances, so does indifference. It is a disease. Immunize yourself with art. And love.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

Love, Hate, Disease, Art

“Feel guilty. Mourn this. But move on. Don't let it destroy you. Forgive yourself.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Feeling, Forgiveness

“It is hard to accept being different, hard to have people avoid looking at you, and still believe in yourself.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: The Hob's Bargain

People

“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

Beauty, Light, Time, Sun

“Henry," said Charlotte, who appeared to have recovered from her shock, "if you set yourself on fire deliberately, I will institute divorce proceedings. Now sit down and eat your supper. And say hello to our guest.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: Henry," said Charlotte, who seemed to have recovered from her shock, "if you set yourself on fire deliberately, I will institute divorce proceedings. Now sit down and eat your supper. And say hello to our guest.
Source: Clockwork Angel

Appearance

“People changed. Even the people you thought you knew as well as you knew yourself.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

People, Change