Finding Herself Quotes & Sayings

She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and torturous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet, half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mournful notes without promise, devoid even of hope. — Kate Chopin

He glanced to the walkways on either side of him, wondering what the chances were that he would actually catch sight of Ziva. Keeping an eye out for someone who didn't want to be found - especially when that someone was Lieutenant Ziva Payvan - was as close to futile as something could get. It wasn't a matter of finding her, but rather of her making herself known when she saw fit. — E.J. Fisch

I'm not some tortured, abandoned creature, Wayne," Marasi said, finding herself smiling at her distorted reflection in a ladle. "I'm not sitting around pining and dreaming for someone else to decide if I should be happy. There's nothing there. Whether that's due to actual lack of affection on his part, or more to stubbornness, I don't care. I've moved on. — Brandon Sanderson

Here: an exercise in choice. Your choice. One of these tales is true.
She lived through the war. In 1959 she came to America. She now lives in a condo in Miami, a tiny French woman with white hair, with a daughter and a grand-daughter. She keeps herself to herself and smiles rarely, as if the weight of memory keeps her from finding joy.
Or that's a lie. Actually the Gestapo picked her up during a border crossing in 1943, and they left her in a meadow. First she dug her own grave, then a single bullet to the back of the skull.
Her last thought, before that bullet, was that she was four months' pregnant, and that if we do not fight to create a future there will be no future for any of us.
There is an old woman in Miami who wakes, confused, from a dream of the wind blowing the wildflowers in a meadow.
There are bones untouched beneath the warm French earth which dream of a daughter's wedding. Good wine is drunk. The only tears shed are happy ones. — Neil Gaiman

A women under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood. — John Gray

A girl who would fall in love so easily or want a man to love her so easily would probably get over it just as quickly, very little the worse for wear. On the contrary, a girl who would take love seriously would probably be a good while finding herself in love and would require something beyond mere friendly attentions from a man before she would think of him in that light. — L.M. Montgomery

For years, she had been in mourning for the way she had let her life slip through her fingers. Given another chance, she'd told herself, she would take more care to experience it. But lately, she was finding that she had experienced it after all and just forgotten, and now it was returning to her. — Anne Tyler

Elinor retreated to the terrace where the night air on her skin felt like a hot bath. She was hurt, it had been such an onslaught. All the things she'd achieved in the past four years, the independent life she'd built for herself, seemed to count for nothing here. The only thing that mattered to her mother was finding a husband. As for painting, well, nice little hobby, very suitable, but you won't have much time for that when the children arrive. — Pat Barker

Shut up, shut up, she ordered herself, but nerves overwhelmed her. "You have a wonderful operation. Meara showed me around. And you're right. Alastar has spirit, and a strong will, but he's not mean. Not innately. He's just mad and unsettled, finding himself in a strange place, with people and horses he's not used to. Now he has something to prove, especially to Boyle. — Nora Roberts

This summer had been about finding herself, and learning to accept love in its various forms
and to give love. - Quinn Reynolds — Molli Moran

I apologized pretty well, didn't I?" she said proudly as they went down the lane. "I thought since I had to do it I might as well do it thoroughly." "You did it thoroughly, all right enough," was Marilla's comment. Marilla was dismayed at finding herself inclined to laugh over the recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she ought to scold Anne for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous! — L.M. Montgomery

Power to Laura Boudreau-McPherson-O'Brien: Laura's Story is about a woman finding her place in the world, and her voice, while struggling against poverty, societal limitations, and at times, herself. Anyone who has had to fight for what she believes in or come up against odds be they external or internal, will relate to this book. Women will feel strength and will realize that though this novel is a work of fiction, it is authentic in its aim to give a voice to many women's untold stories. Happy International Women's Day everyone! — Julie Larade

She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through the last integuments! — D.H. Lawrence

Ruin still used Reen's voice - it was familiar, something that had always seemed a part of her. Discovering that it belonged to that thing ... it was like finding out that her reflection really belonged to someone else, and that she'd never actually seen herself. — Brandon Sanderson

Christ on crackers, she'd barely gotten over finding out about the others: if she had to start believing aliens were real, too, she was finished. she'd stab herself in the heart with a blue pencil just see if she didn't.
-Corinne D'Alessandro — Christine Warren

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself. — Mark Twain

I try to write about a woman finding her self-respect, valuing herself, and liking herself again. But what one desperately wants now is to write a proper novel. — Kate O'Mara

She came unannounced, certain of finding him there and alone. In his room, there was no necessity to spare, lie, agree and erase herself out of being. Here she was free to resist, to see her resistance welcomed by an adversary too strong to fear a contest, strong enough to need it; she found a will granting her the recognition of her own entity, untouched and not to be touched except in clean battle, to win or to be defeated, but to be preserved in victory or defeat, not ground into the meaningless pulp of the impersonal. — Ayn Rand

Daily Alice awoke, as she always did, when the sun broke in at her eastward windows with a noise like music. She kicked off the figured coverlet and lay naked in the long bars of sun for a time, touching herself awake, finding eyes, knees, breasts, red-gold hair all in place and where she had left them. Then she stood, stretched, brushed the last of sleep from her face, and knelt by the bed amid the squares of sun and said, as she had every morning since she could speak, her prayers:
O great wide beautiful wonderful World
With the wonderful waters around you curled
And the beautiful grass upon your breast
O World you are beautifully dressed. — John Crowley

And Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book. — Jane Austen

Margaret stood all alone at her first witch-burning. She had on her new blue cap and her sister's shawl, and she stood by herself, waiting. She had long ago given up on finding her sister and brother-in-law in the crowd, and was now content to watch alone. She felt a very pleasant fear and a crying excitement over the burning; she had lived all her life in the country and now, staying with her sister in the city, she was being introduced to the customs of society. — Shirley Jackson

Why hasn't Annika sent a retrieval party?"
"Now, don't feel slighted - I'm sure she will soon - but right now she's focused on finding Myst. She figured if Ivo is looking for a Valkyrie, it'd have to be Myst. Remember, she was in his dungeon only five years ago? And had that incident with the rebel general?"
Like Emma would ever forget. Myst herself had confided to Emma that she might as well have been caught freebasing with the ghost of Bundy.
"See," Nix said, "other Valkyrie like the forbidden fruit as much as you do. — Kresley Cole

Dany "Bring me that book I was reading last night." She wanted to lose herself in the words, in other times and other places. The fat leather-bound volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms. Children's stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful to be true history. All the heroes were tall and handsome, and you could tell the traitors by their shifty eyes. Yet she loved reading them all the same. Last night she had been reading of the three princesses in the red tower, locked away by the king for the crime of being beautiful.
When her handmaiden brought the book, dany had no trouble finding the page where she had left off, but is was no good. She found herself reading the same passage half a dozen times. "Ser Jorah gave me this book as a bride's gift, the day I we'd Khal Drogo" She played at at being a queen, yet sometimes she felt like a scared little girl. — George R R Martin

Florence had noticed one or two eccentricities in herself lately, which might be the result of hard work, or of age, or of living alone. When the letters came, for example, she often found herself wasting time in looking at the postmarks and wondering whoever they could be from, instead of opening them in a sensible manner and finding out at once. — Penelope Fitzgerald

He knew exactly what was due east and if his parents wanted him to bring a bride back to the castle, then heading towards the fire-breathing dragon was the wrong way to go about it. Any princess daft enough to get herself captured by a dragon was on her own." Prince Aiden on finding a bride. — L.M. Brown

It was like coming home or being born or suddenly finding an entire half of herself that had been missing. — Sarah J. Maas

I have an image of a woman with a romantic kind of beauty and an orderly, logical mind." "Hunter - " "Wait, I'm just fleshing her out. She's ambitious, full of nerves, highly sensuous without being fully aware of it." He could see her eyes change, growing as dark as the sky above them. "She's caught in the middle of something she can't explain or understand. Things happen around her and she's finding it more and more difficult to distance herself from it. And there's a man, a man she desires but can't quite trust. He doesn't offer her the logical explanations she wants, but the illogic he offers seems terrifyingly close to the truth. If she puts her trust in him, she has to turn her back on most of what she believes is fact. If she doesn't, she'll be alone. — Nora Roberts

Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right. — Rainer Maria Rilke

She went back to the kitchen, for the kitchen of the Hand of God was so large that Miss Joliffe and Anastasia used part of it for their sitting-room, took the pencil out of "Northanger Abbey," and tried to transport herself to Bath. Five minutes ago she had been in the Grand Pump Room herself, and knew exactly where Mrs Allen and Isabella Thorpe and Edward Morland were sitting; where Catherine was standing, and what John Thorpe was saying to her when Tilney walked up. But alas! Anastasia found no re-admission; the lights were put out, the Pump Room was in darkness. A sad change to have happened in five minutes; but no doubt the charmed circle had dispersed in a huff on finding that they no longer occupied the first place in Miss Anastasia Joliffe's interest. And, indeed, she missed them the less because she had discovered that she herself possessed a wonderful talent for romance, and had already begun the first chapter of a thrilling story. — John Meade Falkner

Was it possible to love more than one person at the same time? I had always thought it just kind of a convenient notion that authors of novels and screen plays used to amp up intrigue in their stories. I could remember more than a few times while reading a book or watching a movie, I had laughed and rolled my eyes at the heroine for finding herself in such a situation. And yet . . . here I was . . . — D.T. Dyllin

Catherine [ ... ] enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself. — Jane Austen

It was in the work that she came closest to finding herself, by which we don't mean gaining "self-knowledge" or understanding one's "true nature" but rather how at some point you can see most plainly that this is what you do, this is how you fit in the wider ecology. — Chang-rae Lee

It's as if I died too,' she whispered to herself, 'as if I was born dead.'
Ironically, it was true. Emotionally she knew what her mind did not, beyond logic, beyond reason, as if somehow deep inside she felt what Sarah knew. — Denny Taylor

You know full well that it was past time for you to come out in the open. And by admitting the truth, there are no more secrets, for either of us." She smiled. "That means we're able to discontinue playing the parts we've been playing for far too long and begin living our lives as they were meant to be lived - you as an author, and me as . . . well, I haven't figured that out exactly yet, but I have a few ideas in mind." Bram smiled. "I have to hope that I figure in somewhere with those few ideas, but . . ." He nodded to the shoreline. "We're almost to Ravenwood, so now is hardly the time to discuss such matters." Knowing he was right but finding herself unable to keep from smiling at the idea of having Bram Haverstein as part of her future plans - although what part he would play in her life it was certainly too soon to tell - Lucetta set her sights on the shore, anxious to see Ravenwood from the vantage point of the Hudson. "Do — Jen Turano

Moira had power now, she'd been set loose, she'd set herself loose. She was now a loose woman.
I think we found this frightening.
Moira was like an elevator with open sides. She made us dizzy. Already we were losing the taste for freedom, already we were finding these walls secure. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere you'd come apart, you'd vaporize, there would be no pressure holding you together. — Margaret Atwood

The entrance of the woman with equal rights into practical modern life, her new freedom, her finding herself side by side with men in the streets, offices, professions, factories, sports, and now even in political and military life, is one of those dissolutive phenomena in which, in most cases, it is difficult to perceive anything positive. In essence, all this is simply the renunciation of the woman's right to be a woman. — Julius Evola

After the small woman had left, Ushikawa stared at the door for the longest time. She had shut the door behind her, but there was still a strong sense of her in the room. Maybe in exchange for leaving a trace of herself behind, she had taken away a part of Ushikawa's soul. He could feel that new void within his chest. Why did this happen? he wondered, finding it odd. And what could it possibly mean? — Haruki Murakami

No one could see her out here, no one could judge her. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw the animal that she was trapped inside, that grew and fed and wanted. She wished above all else to look ordinary so that people's eyes just slid over her. Because Mum was wrong. It wasn't about believing this or that, it wasn't about good and evil and right and wrong, it was about finding the strength to bear the discomfort that came with being in the world. Clouds scrolled high up. She couldn't get Melissa out of her head. Something magnetic about her, the possibility of a softness inside, the challenge of peeling back those layers. — Mark Haddon

The kiss obliterated her. It was like coming home or being born or suddenly finding an entire half of herself that had been missing. His — Sarah J. Maas

A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want. — Jane Austen

the English explorer Richard Burton told the story of an Englishman finding his new wife unconscious on the marital bed, having chloroformed herself. She had pinned a note to her nightdress which read: 'Mama says you're to do what you like. — Sam Miller

Standing up on her wobbly legs, Blue began to use all of the protective visualizations she'd been taught by her mother. She imagined herself inside an unbreakable glass ball; she could see out, but no on could touch her.
She imagined white light piercing the stormy clouds, the roof, the darkness of Noah, finding Blue, armoring her.
Then she pulled the plug on the battery that was Blue Sargent.
The room went still. The papers settled. The light flickered once more and then strengthened. — Maggie Stiefvater

She takes a step toward me and slides her hands between my folded arms, pushing against them until they unlock. "Daniel Wesley you owe me a do-over since you made me kiss you in a crowded restaurant right next to a dirty diaper."
"It wasn't crowded," I interject.
She glares at me. "Put your hands on my face and push me against this wall and slip me some tongue! Now!"
Before she can laugh at herself, my hands are casing her face and her back is pressed against the wall of her house and my mouth is on hers. — Colleen Hoover

She frowned, thinking of going down there and explaining herself all over again, reliving the horror of finding Mimi's body and trying not to think of how she'd looked when they'd dragged her up and out of the ravine. No sooner had she thought it than she heard Mimi's voice, chastising her over a year ago.

"You hide from life, Catherine. Even when you're in the middle of it, standing toe to toe with all the bad guys you bring in, you manage to keep an emotional distance. I understand why you do it, but ultimately, you're the one who will suffer. You're the one who's going to grow old alone."

Cat blinked back tears, remembering what she'd told her.

I won't be alone, Mimi. I'll always have you.

Obviously she had been wrong. — Sharon Sala

Finding Will, loving Will, had been a revelation. Like finding the other half of herself. Having his grounded wisdom to draw on when she needed it, knowing that no matter what, she had him to come home to, that his laughter was part of her world and that the passion and courage and joy he ignited in her were here to stay, had transformed her perception of herself. — Sarah Mayberry

No, Lucy. Your mother doesn't really love men. They are a symptom of her obsessive quest of finding somebody who will make her whole. She doesn't understand that she has to make herself whole. — Patricia Cornwell

Normally, Alexis would have been put off by such a blatant gesture, but his eyes, his bright, soft blue eyes, had her melting. It was any wonder how a wave could withstand such a look from eyes like that and continue to build towards him.
His eyes were her ocean in those brief seconds. She felt herself swimming within them, trying to answer the questions they held while finding answers to her own. — Lindsay Chamberlin

A girl who truly knows herself is a girl that everybody else wants to know. — Mandy Hale

Several years after she obtained the patent for her game, and finding it difficult to support herself on the $10 a week she was earning as a stenographer, Magie staged an audacious stunt mocking marriage as the only option for women; it made national headlines. Purchasing an advertisement, she offered herself for sale as a "young woman American slave" to the highest bidder. Her ad said that she was "not beautiful, but very attractive," and that she had "features full of character and strength, yet truly feminine. — Anonymous

Tina, finding herself and her husband on a sandbank, so to speak, between two classes, had gone to the artists. The artists do not mind if one is gentry or a common cad so long as one is neither a snob nor a bore — Stella Gibbons

How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to herself. — Lewis Carroll

When he tore his eyes from the piece of parchment, his gaze went straight to Sophie, a strange look on his face. He tossed the letter over his shoulder, strode across the room toward her, his eyes alight with triumph. He grabbed Sophie around the waist, tilted her backward, and kissed her passionately on the lips. Finding herself off balance, Sophie held onto his shoulders. Her heart soared at his sudden display of affection. — Melanie Dickerson

She posed as being more indolent than she felt, for fear of finding herself less able than she could wish. — Elizabeth Bowen

American literature isn't anybody phoning to anybody or anybody writing about anybody. American literature is the woman in the courtroom who, finding herself undefended on a charge, asked, 'Isn't anybody on my side?' It's also the phrase I used that was once used in court of a kid who, on being sentenced to death, said, 'I knew I'd never get to be twenty-one anyhow. — Nelson Algren

I would let her ... have adventures. I would let her ... choose her path. It would be hard ... it was hard ... but I would do it. Oh, not completely, of course. Some things have to go on. Cleaning one's teeth, arithmetic. But Maia fell in love with the Amazon. It happens. THe place was for her - and the people. Of course there was some danger, but there is danger everywhere. Two years ago, in this school, there was an outbreak of typhus, and three girls died. CHildren are knocked down and killed by horses every week, here in these streets
" She broke off, gathering her thoughts. "When she was traveling and exploring ... and finding her songs, Maia wasn't just happy, she was ... herself. I think something broke in Maia when her parents died, and out there it healed. Perhaps I'm mad
and the professor too
but I think children must lead big lives ... if it is in them to do so. — Eva Ibbotson

Our children are going to be remarkably stubborn," he commented as they started down the main street of town. Lily tried to ignore the avid stares of passers-by. "We aren't going to have any children," she said. Some instinct caused her to lie. "My - my monthly arrived today." Caleb fell silent, and in a sidelong glance Lily saw his disappointment. She laid a hand on his arm but could not. bring herself to admit the truth. If the major believed there was no child - indeed, no possibility of a child - he might stop pursuing Lily. The sooner he gave up, the sooner she could get on with building up her homestead and finding her sisters. She bit down on her lower lip. Of course, if there was a baby growing inside her, would it be fair to let Caleb go back to Fox Chapel without ever knowing he was about to become a father? The — Linda Lael Miller

You shall have whatever you like,' said Grandcourt.
'And nothing that I don't like? - please say that; because I think I dislike what I don't like more than I like what I like,' said Gwendolen, finding herself in the woman's paradise where all her nonsense is adorable. — George Eliot

Was so much more than she'd ever expected for herself, but she was finding that nothing less would satisfy her. For the rest of her life, every man she came into contact with would be judged against Tristan. No one could meet his standard. I made love to this man, she thought, awed, drawing in his scent that still clung to her skin. Several times. Peace fluttered inside her, a feeling she'd thought she possessed before - a sort of satisfaction with her life, an acceptance. She'd deceived herself, convinced herself that her life was fine the way it was. Now she knew the truth. True satisfaction was only found in Tristan's arms. With him, she felt alive, whole. Desired. — Gena Showalter

I wish," she continued, turning back to herself, "that there was a path of words I could walk down and they would lead me into a grotto pool where I could re-purify myself and return to the girl I was. But there isn't a path, or even a girl. She's gone, and I'm stuck trying to invent who I want to be, and I'm finding that figuring out who I want to be is so much harder than just being who I was when I was a little kid. — Jack Gantos

Easing back in her seat, Grace watched the children in the playground opposite, coats off, faces flushed, laughing hysterically with pleasure. They were so vividly alive, completely immersed in the game. She tried to recall a time when she'd been that way and realized she couldn't remember when that had been. She'd lost the knack of forgetting herself. Instead she seemed to look down on herself throughout the day, scrutinizing, judging; finding herself wanting more. — Kathleen Tessaro

The growth of a passion is a very peculiar thing. In highly
organized intellectual and artistic types it is so often apt to
begin with keen appreciation of certain qualities, modified by
many, many mental reservations. The egoist, the intellectual,
gives but little of himself and asks much. Nevertheless, the
lover of life, male or female, finding himself or herself in
sympathetic accord with such a nature, is apt to gain much. — Theodore Dreiser

pet. Out came the tongue again, trailing over her cheek to her chin and then across her lips. Oh, no way. "Gross!" she exclaimed, finding her voice. "That was so uncalled for. If you're going to eat me, then just do it already. No need to torture me with slobber and bad breath." She wanted to slap herself for the outburst as soon as she uttered the last syllable. So much for staying calm in the face of death. Expecting — Eve Langlais