Nobody But Myself Quotes & Sayings

When I was running 'round in America, about 30 years old, I didn't want no woman. I knowed I could make enough money to take care of myself, but I didn't want nobody to take care of. — David Edwards

Williamson Starr doesn't use slang - if a rapper would say it, she doesn't say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her "hood". Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she's the "angry black girl". Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is no confrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn't give anyone a reason to call her ghetto.
I can't stand myself for doing it, but I do it anyway. — Angie Thomas

I was fooling everyone by surrounding myself with funny people. But then I put myself out there - writing my own sketches, going on stage with nobody surrounding me - and for some reason people were still laughing. — Carly Craig

I think of my mother and how, when I was a child, she'd take me into the water with her and I felt time suspended in her embrace. How badly I've wanted to return to those moments. We remained under the same roof, but the years pulled us apart, so we could never recover the softness I felt from her under the sun, amid the waves.

Here, in the open ocean, with nobody to hold me at the surface but myself, I become sad for what's become of my mother and me, the ways life hardened us to one another. — Patricia Engel

I lend everyone my ear,
But nobody my heart,
And I sure would like to change that,
But I don't know where to start,
I smile more to myself,
Than the world will ever see,
Because the only time my smile is real,
Is in my own company,
People don't know how I feel,
They never even ask,
It seems I have fooled them all,
They can't see past my mask,
If they were with me late at night,
When the world was still asleep,
Maybe I'd let them sort,
Through the secrets that I keep,
But when I wake at 2am,
Nobody is ever there,
And I learnt that why I hide my heart,
Is because no-one really cares. — Erin Hanson

My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. I tell myself it doesn't matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter. I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried. This name has an aura around it, like an amulet, some charm that's survived from an unimaginably distant past. I lie in my single bed at night, with my eyes closed, and the name floats there behind my eyes, not quite within reach, shining in the dark. — Margaret Atwood

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness. — Seneca The Younger

It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man! — Ralph Ellison

I want to thank each person who has the courage to push through and past the set of coping behaviors we've come to label as codependency - who learn what it means to take care of themselves. "Nobody taught me how to take care of myself," a fifty-year-old woman told me recently. "I didn't have enough money to go to therapy, but I had enough to buy a book. — Melody Beattie

When I was a child and told my mother I didn't felt this was my planet, she thought I was schizophrenic or autistic. When later I finished a college degree and started working in different countries, she called me monster and started threatening me. Nearly 40 years later, when I was making a living from the books I wrote based on what I know, and making 6 times more money than she ever will, she apologized. I'm just not sure why or what she was apologizing for. I had already forgiven her ignorance when realizing nobody would ever believe the truth but myself. I had to go the whole way alone. Nobody was going to come with me on this very long, painful and challenging journey that humans call life but for me was much more than that, it was my mission, of changing their whole future far beyond the time when I'm gone. She was never my mother but merely the human body that gave me birth. In that sense, I am a monster, because I had no love. I had to find that too, on my own. — Robin Sacredfire

If I could go back in time to when I wrote sad little poems, I'd punch myself right in the fucking face because it gets worse man. It gets much, much worse and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can just start dying and I know. I know - blahblahblah, nobody gives a fuck about your broken heart, but you know something? Most days, I'm not even sure what I'm upset about. — Dan "Soupy" Campbell

Every musician in the known universe has signed a bad piece of paper, myself included. But it's really very simple. You're the artist. It's your picture that's going on the CD cover, nobody else's. Protect yourself. Get a good lawyer. You'll kick yourself later if you don't. — Bun E. Carlos

Nobody - myself included - believes that we could ever achieve total information awareness. But the government needs to set goals and long-range objectives. Total information awareness is a good goal. — John Poindexter

Nobody with me at sea but myself. — Oliver Goldsmith

I never identified with anybody. I have always been very sensitive about my color, because everybody called me 'yellow gal.' I was caught in between both sides - nobody wanted me. I love that my audience is there, but I always feel as though I have to fend for myself. — Eartha Kitt

The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. Slowly but surely it's robbed me of my mother, my wife, and everything that meant anything to me. It's like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time. No sooner am I out of bed in the morning than work clamps down on me and pins me to my desk before I've even had a breath of fresh air. It follows me to lunch and I find myself chewing over sentences as I'm chewing my food. It goes with me when I go out, eats out of my plate at dinner and shares my pillow in bed at night. It's so extremely merciless that once the process of creation is started, it's impossible for me to stop it, and it goes on growing and working even when I'm asleep. ... Outside that, nothing, nobody exists. — Emile Zola

I know what I really want for Christmas.
I want my childhood back.
Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of or hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy. — Robert Fulghum

On this thanksgiving, I would like to thank that one girl, who never lost hope despite all odds were against her, who always worked, and moved on, despite losing all friends just after leaving school, a time when you need friends the most! Who had immense strength and will-power and so much inspiration inside her that she ended up being happy, satisfied, and successful, all alone.
That one girl who always smiles in the mirror, and says, 'Bitch, you have a long way to go, and you gotta travel all alone, depending upon anyone will make you weak, so buck up, there's a lot you gotta do!' On this thanksgiving, I thank myself, my soul for being so majestically robust!
I would have thanked other people, but sadly, nobody ever helped me, more than I helped myself ... — Mehek Bassi

Nobody will be able to forgive me but myself. — Ding Ling

I felt tired, but I pitched the ball back at her. You want me to talk about myself, right? Let me tell you what 'self' means to me. The self, myself, the self as I see it, is composed mainly of selected memories from my history. I am not what I am doing now. I am what I have done, and the edited version of my past seems more real to me than what I am at this moment. I don't know who or what I really am. The present is fleeting and intangible. No one in China wants to talk about his past, because nobody wants to paint his face black. Our past is not a flattering picture, and no one wants to look at it for long. Yet what we were in fixed and final. It is the basis for predictions of what we will be in the future. To tell you truth, I identify with what no longer exists more than what actually is. We have lied about what we actually are, and that, unfortunately, will be your book. So would you still like me to talk about myself? — Anchee Min

i want to discover myself.
i want to destroy myself.
i want to be a secret that nobody but i can ruin. — Salma Deera

Again I take a taxi to Clichy address, but feel that I do not want to go on loving Henry more actively than he loves me (having realized that nobody will ever love me in that overabundant, overexpressive, overthoughtful, overhuman way I love people), and so I will wait for him. So I ask taxi driver to drop me at the Galeries Lafayette, where I begin to look for a new hat and to shop for Christmas. Pride? I don't know. A kind of wise retreat. I need people too much. So I bury my gigantic defect, my overflow of love, under trivialities, like a child. I amuse myself with a new hat. — Anais Nin

You cannot be chosen as a winner without contest. Winners have many families but nobody wants to associate with a loser. I will prepare myself and one day my chance will come. — Osunsakin Adewale

Nobody would know me from my own description of myself; which is why, when called upon (rarely, I grant) to provide an account, I tailor it, I adapt, I try to provide an outline that can, in some way, correlate to the outline that people understand me to have
that, I suppose, I actually have, at this point. But who I am in my head, very few people really get to see that. Almost none. It's the most precious gift I can give, to bring her out of hiding. — Claire Messud

I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You'd think we'd be getting better at it. But there's just more and more chaos. The pieces - they're everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it's right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that. — David Levithan

In Hawaii, many were especially helpful and supportive of this project, but nobody more than Mary Kennedy and Frank "Bamboo" Opperman. My landlords became close friends, and their Mokuleia compound will always hold a special place in my heart. Mokuleia equestrian Michael Daly was also extremely helpful to both Mike Ritter and myself. Another special thanks goes to Duc Nguyen and Minh Nga Vu, the proprietors of Duc's Bistro. The restaurant provided a safe harbor at a very tumultuous time in the project. Their generosity, grace, and delicious — Peter Maguire

There were times when I thought I got a bit more punishment than was coming to me, but I don't regret a minute of it now. Each of us must be tempered in some fire. Nobody had more to do with choosing the fire that tempered me than myself, and instead of finding fault with the fire I give thanks that I had the metal to take the temper and hold it. — Jack Black

Yonkers made me strong and made me believe in myself, because so many people would doubt you and not believe. There are people that would believe in you, but the environment was so harsh, nobody wanted you to get out, you know? — Mary J. Blige

My parents are really well intended, and I think their way of dealing with things is denial and guilt. Nobody wanted to talk about it. But all I did was blame myself. — Teri Hatcher

No outward thing - nothing, nobody from without - can hurt me inside, psychologically. I recognized that I could only be hurt psychologically by my own wrong actions, which I have control over; by my own wrong reactions (they are tricky, but I have control over them too); or by my own inaction in some situations, like the present world situation, that need action from me. When I recognized all this how free I felt! And I just stopped hurting myself. — Peace Pilgrim

The sweet roll smelled divine, and I thanked him, prancing my way back to Mal and feeling quite pleased with myself. He grabbed my arm and pulled me down a muddy walkway between two houses. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Nobody saw me. He just thought I was another peasant girl."
"We can't take risks like that."
"So you don't want a bite?"
He hesitated. "I didn't say that."
"I was going to give you a bite, but since you don't want one, I'll just have to eat the whole thing myself."
Mal grabbed for the roll, but I danced out of reach, dodging left and right, away from his hands. I could see his surprise, and I loved it. I wasn't the same clumsy girl he remembered.
"You are a brat," he growled and took another swipe.
"Ah, but I'm a brat with a sweet roll. — Leigh Bardugo

Atheist: 'I hear the voice of conscience, but I deny the reality of God.' St. Thomas: 'That is like listening to someone speak, but denying that anyone is there.' Atheist: 'That's right; nobody is.' St. Thomas: 'Then you deny not only God but conscience, because you consider it a hallucination.' Atheist: 'I misspoke. What I meant to say is that when I am listening to conscience, I am really listening to myself.' St. Thomas: 'Then you still deny conscience, because you deny its authority to judge you. Instead you claim to judge yourself, but no one can be judge in his own case. — J. Budziszewski

I am all emptiness and futility. I am an empty stranger, a carbon copy of my form. I can no longer find what I'm looking for outside of myself. It doesn't exist out there. Maybe it's only in here, inside my head. But my head is glass and my eyes have stopped being cameras, the tape has run out and nobody's words can touch me. — David Wojnarowicz

I was thinking about stabbing myself in the face - not actually considering stabbing myself in the face, but thinking that it would be a physical expression of how I felt. — Catherine Lacey

This was 1990 the year that communism died in Europe and it seemed strange to me that in all the words that were written about the fall of the iron curtain, nobody anywhere lamented that it was the end of a noble experiment. I know that communism never worked and I would have disliked living under it myself but none the less it seems that there was a kind of sadness in the thought that the only economic system that appeared to work was one based on self interest and greed. — Bill Bryson

And I'll tell you another thing, Patrick Michael Thomas Cunnane, if you think you can come and go at all hours as you damn please just because you're going off to college, you'd best get that thick head of yours examined in a hurry. I'll be happy to do it myself, with the skillet I have in my hand, just as soon as I'm done with it."
"Yes,ma'am." At the table Patrick say with his shoulders hunched, wincing at this mother's back. "But since you're using it, maybe I could have some more French toast.Nobody makes it like you do."
"You won't get around me that way."
"Maybe I will."
She shot a look over her shoulder that Brian recognized as one only a mother could conjure to wither a child.
"And maybe I won't," Patrick muttered, then brightened when he saw Brian at the door. "Ma,we've got company. Have a seat,Brian. Had breakfast? My mother makes world-famous French toast."
"Witnessess won't save you," Adelia said mildly, but turned to smile at Brian. — Nora Roberts

8. Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. — Jonathan Edwards

I've always had to conquer fear when I'm on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It's absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I'm okay. It's like I'm out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me. — Steven Wright

When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial. — Fernando Pessoa

With acting, I'm taking somebody else's work and interpreting it. Whereas with music, it's organic. It's completely myself. Nobody else is really involved with the beginning stages of it. Art is something that I haven't really put out to the public. There's a couple pictures on MySpace, but I haven't done a gallery opening or anything like that. Art is very personal to me. I haven't really shared it with too many people. — Tinsel Korey

The question isn't whether I have time to read or not (time that nobody will ever give me, by the way), but whether I'll allow myself the pleasure of being a reader. — Daniel Pennac

[Solitary confinement] is terrible. That is terrible. You're in a grave. You can't do anything. Everything's brought to you and you're in a room all day, except to come out of the showers. So when I would come out, I would entertain myself by singing, doing little mock concerts. And then when I was in the room, I would develop a routine. Like I have a lot of hair under here, so I would take my hair down and take all day to braid it on purpose. Stretch the hours out. Then I might write. And I would clean the floor. And I would look out the window. And then I'd devote a whole day to just reading. I was Christian then, trying to be. So I would read the whole Bible. I would break it down into sections. You're in a grave and you're trying to live. That's how to best describe it: trying to live in a grave. You're trying to live 'cause you're not dead yet, but nobody hears you when you call out, 'Hey, I'm alive! — Megan Sweeney

I still can't figure out what inspired me to do physics. But since I was nine or ten years old, I wanted to be like [Albert] Einstein. He was my hero. I knew no physicists. I knew no scientists. I had nobody around me. And I went to a convent that didn't even have higher mathematics and physics. I taught myself these subjects in order to get into university. — Vandana Shiva

I had reached the conclusion myself that sex was not a division but a continuum, that almost nobody was altogether of one sex or another, and that the infinite subtlety of the shading from one extreme to the other was one of the most beautiful of nature's phenomena. — Jan Morris

I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction. I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shop windows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant. — Franz Kafka

I'm bad on Valentine's Day, but even worse on Christmas. I go shopping at nine o'clock on December 24th every year. Nobody else is there. I'm in Toys'R'Us all by myself. I get there five minutes before closing. — Jamie Foxx

I'm American. Why didn't I say I was African American? Because I'm in a foreign country? But can I really consider myself to be in a foreign country when I could go walking back to my own country right now if I wanted, and it wouldn't even take very long? Does this mean that in some places I'm American and in some places I'm African American and in other places, by logical extension, I'm nobody? — Roberto Bolano

It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. — Ralph Ellison

I have referred to it as a gift--something for which others with this affliction have taken me to task. I was only speaking from my own experience, of course, but I stand partially corrected: if it is a gift, it's the gift that just keeps on taking.

Coping with relentless assault and the accumulating damage is not easy. Nobody would ever choose to have this visited upon them. Still, this unexpected crisis forced a fundamental life decision: adopt a siege mentality--or embark upon a journey. Whatever it was--courage? acceptance? wisdom?--that finally allowed me to go down the second road (after spending a few disastrous years on the first) was unquestionably a gift--and absent this neurophysiological catastrophe, I would never have opened it, or been so profoundly enriched. That's why I consider myself a lucky man. — Michael J. Fox

In the beginning I was really, really lean. For the longest time I did it all. I played every hat. I was in the factory, doing the graphic design, the photography, the selling - literally everything. I saved money doing what I could myself. It was hard but I learned. I learned that nobody's better than you to get your business off the ground. The experience you get is priceless. — Lori Greiner

There was too much opinion in this country, too many sob stories. Nobody wanted to put a lid on anything; everyone wanted to say it all, about everything. If you as much as said hello to someone on a train or a plane, you were in for the unexpurgated memoirs. Nehru in 1947 had declared us a nation finding utterance - but in fifty years the utterance had become a mad clamour, a crazed babble, an unending howl. We were a nation of Scheherzades, afraid we'd die if, for a moment, we shut up. For myself, I'd mastered a face of steel, and an inscrutable nod. It did not always shut everyone up, but it did to some extent dam the ghastly flow. — Tarun J. Tejpal

Human existence is a penal colony; a sexually transmitted disease; a disappointment; nothing but suffering; "a sky-dive: out of a cunt into the grave"; a one-way ticket to the crematorium. "Nobody gets out of here alive". Every day is a grim passage, a struggle through moments and hours of loneliness, boredom, emptiness, and self-loathing. I count myself among the pessimists. I believe that life is suffering. I force myself (my contraself) to look at other positions, but this remains my default. More specifically, I am a depressive realist. — Colin Feltham

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own. — Billie Holiday

I'm here, I said, but I knew, increasingly, I wasn't here, and I felt that able-to-weep-and-be-seen version of myself that I'd been with Ruth hardening again, like warm caramel left to cool. — Catherine Lacey

Nobody knows I'm different. Or they may know, but they don't know how different and they don't know what this thing is that's driving me because I can't ... this is ... these are charges ... which I understand having got two children of my own and having had these mad thoughts myself that you know, I've got to get out there and do something. I don't know what it is, but it's got to be interesting. — Derek Taylor

I still sweat bullets if I go on The Tonight Show, but I tell myself, You can either have fun tonight or you can be shy and miserable. You ask my friends or anyone I work with now - nobody would say I was shy. — Lara Flynn Boyle

Everyone at school has their little group. Even the people nobody likes seem to tolerate each other enough to sit together at lunch. But I just sort of wander around by myself most of the time. It's almost be better if I thought no one liked me, if I had some weird tick or social inadequacy that cold easily explain my alienation but it's not that easy. People talk to me at school and invite me to parties, but something's missing on the smaller scale. I don't belong to anybody. I don't have anyone who is mine. — Amy Reed

I like myself. I have never once hated myself.
My high specs, my half decent looks,
My pessimistic, realist point of view.
I don't hate any of it at all. But, for the first time,
I feel like I could hate myself.

The Yukino Yukinoshita
I've seen all this time was always beautiful, pure,
Never told a lie, and could stand on her own feet even-
With nobody to lean on.
I'm pretty sure I always admired her for that.
I forced my own expectations and ideals on her,
Let myself think I understood her, and let myself be dissapointed.

I cautioned myself against this time and time again,
But I still haven't gotten over it.
Even Yukino Yukinoshita tells lies.
I couldn't even accept such an obvious fact,
And for that...I...hate myself
- Hachiman Hikigaya — Wataru Watari

And then you came along and you spoke to me and nobody had looked me in the eye for years. ( ... ) But I remember you that day and you looked at peace with yourself and it made me reconsider everything I had planned to do. Because I thought to myself, you can't do this to her, not after the Hermit thing."
"Do what to me? I don't think leaving me on that platform would have changed my life, Griggs," I lie.
"You being on that platform changed mine. — Melina Marchetta

I was always asking myself why. Why am I feeling this? Thinking that if I knew the cause I could find the cure. But of course there was no reasonable why, at least not in the present. I was awash in an accumulation of past feelings and future dreads, all similar, at least as far as my brain was concerned, and so, lumped together as one. But nobody can handle a lifetime of experience in one moment. That's why depression crushes you. — Norah Vincent

It was unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. Sometimes, of an evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course - nobody's business any more - all the romance of our engagement put away on a shelf, to rust - no one to please but one another - one another to please, for life. — Charles Dickens

I passed through this stage years ago on Venus, where I was so unfashionable that eventually I almost convinced myself I no longer cared that nobody wanted me; but recent events have reawakened my need for intimacy. — Charles Stross

I can't count the times I have lagged seemingly hopelessly far behind, and nobody except myself thinks I can win. But I have pulled myself in from desperate [situations]. When you are behind there are two strategies - counter-attack or all men to the defences. I'm good at finding the right balance between those. — Magnus Carlsen

The whole idea of WHAT HAPPENED WAS ... is not about dating. It is more about people who are not committed to who they are or are indifferent about their life in general, which is how I felt about myself when I wrote it. I had turned 40 and I was unhappy and I wanted to write about that. Dating just became the framework ... I like all those fringy, weird, nonverbal, quiet, tiny little things, those powerful interchanges between people, things that go unsaid, that people know are happening all the time but nobody wants to talk about. That's what I want to make movies about. — Tom Noonan

There's never a garden in all the parish but what there's endless waste in it for want o' somebody as could use everything up. It's what I think to myself sometimes, as there need nobody run short o' victuals if the land was made the most on, and there was never a morsel but what could find it's way to a mouth. — George Eliot

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good ... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

It's luck. All is luck when skill's played out. It was luck left me with a face that didn't fit in Contact, it's luck that's made you a great game-player, it's luck that's put you here tonight. Neither of us were fully planned, Jernau Gurgeh; your genes determined you and your mother's genofixing made certain you would not be a cripple or mentally subnormal. The rest is chance. I was brought into being with the freedom to be myself; if what that general plan and that particular luck produced is something a majority - a majority, mark you; not all - of one SC admissions board decides is not what they just happen to want, is it my fault? Is it?"

"No," Gurgeh sighed, looking down.

"Oh, it's all so wonderful in the Culture, isn't it, Gurgeh; nobody starves and nobody dies of disease or natural disasters and nobody and nothing's exploited, but there's still luck and heartache and joy, there's still chance and advantage and disadvantage. — Iain M. Banks

I don't mind failing because that means I'm trying. But giving up, now that's something that I'm just not willing to do. I will continue to try and try again. I will keep my peace, stay focused, and know that my time will come. My positive attitude will not depart me. I will hold it close and keep on striving, knowing that what's meant for me, will be. Nothing and nobody can stop it! My dedication and hard work won't fail me, but most importantly, I won't fail myself. I'm a winner and I'm a fighter! I don't allow challenges to stop me. — Stephanie Lahart

But one has to ask: why do the big things at such a high cost? I chose the quiet life. I like the idea of being recognized by my field and no one else. This way I have a purpose, one I believe in, but I'm not burdened by the constant idea of putting on a public image, a view of myself the masses can accept. Nobody cares whether I'm fat or cheat on my taxes. It is not the only right kind of life, of course, but it is the honest life for me. What I'm saying is, I make the right choices for myself. — Jaroslav Kalfar

Every few minutes or so I would remember the look from the man who had wanted fifty cents, and I'd look at that framed memory hanging in myself and it meant I was here, back in this sick city, but in other ways I was not here at all and anyone who looked closely could see that I had nothing to give, that I was a junk drawer, a collection of things that may or may not have had a use. — Catherine Lacey

That's a big responsibility, and the details obsess me. And, also, I no longer feel I have to do the Tonight Show every time I open my mouth. Twenty years ago, I told myself I'd rather direct than act, and it's taken me this long. You lose your passion in acting. You make too many mistakes. Maybe that's why I make so many movies; if you don't like this one, another one's opening on Tuesday. But then I spent six months of my life on 'At Long Last Love,' a picture nobody saw. I enjoyed making it, I learned from it, I grew, but that's too much time out of my life. — Burt Reynolds

Am I making myself clear, Orrin? I don't regret how I've lived these past few years. I move where I will. I set no appointments. I guard no borders. What landbound king has the freedom of a ship's captain? The Sea of Brass provides. When I need haste, it gives me winds. When I need gold, it gives me galleons." Thieves prosper, thought Locke. The rich remember. He made his decision, and gripped the rail to avoid shaking.
"Only gods-damned fools die for lines drawn on maps," said Zamira. "But nobody can draw lines around my ship. If they try, all I need to do to slip away is set more sail. — Scott Lynch

A movie is kind of like being the captain of a ship, which is nice, but when I perform by myself it's just surfing on the water and nobody really knows what happens. — Jerry Seinfeld

I do all this alone, everything I achieve, I achieve alone, because it's my head I'm locked into, and I share this space with nobody but myself. — Alex Garland

But even though I know my flaws are many (many many many), and there are always ways I could be better, and I should never stop working for that - I also need to give myself a break. I can cut myself some slack sometimes. Because I'm a work in progress. Because nobody is perfect. At least I acknowledge the mistakes I've made, and am making. At least I'm trying. That means something, doesn't it?
And just because I have room for improvement doesn't mean I'm worthless, or that I have nothing to offer to, like, the world. — Hannah Harrington

I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse. — Leonora Carrington

But there is one whom you do not deceive, and that is Christ, our Lord. He knows all. Personally, I have felt that nobody need keep much of a record about me, except what I keep myself in my mind, which is a part of my spirit. I often question in my mind, whether it is going to require very many witnesses in addition to my own wrongdoing. — J. Reuben Clark

I look up but don't spot him. "I take care of myself. I ain't living with nobody. Got my own digs. What are you doing up there?"
"Tracking the Hag. Trying to devise a way to trap her. She's fast but she's not a sifter."
I jerk, and look around warily. That's all we need right now. "Is she here?"
"If you brought that crazy bitch near me again." Ryodan doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to. — Karen Marie Moning

Nobody wants to hear that any aspect of my awesome life is bad. I get that. But there are days, maybe two or three times a year, when I get completely overwhelmed by my job and go to my office, lie on the floor, and cry for ten minutes. Then I think: Mindy, you have literally the best life in the world besides that hot lawyer who married George Clooney. This is what you dreamed about when you were a weird, determined little ten-year-old. There are more than a thousand people in one square mile of this studio who would kill to have this job. Get your ass up off the floor and go back into that writers' room, you weakling. Then I get up, pour myself a generous glass of whiskey and club soda, think about the sustained grit of my parents, and go back to work. — Mindy Kaling

I've heard rumors about myself that are true - and nobody likes that. But there's actually something very liberating when you hear a false rumor because you realize there's nothing you can do. People are going to say whatever they want - especially on chat boards. — Christian Borle

Nobody's perfect, but I hold myself accountable. I think about the choices I make because they not only affect me, they affect all of my fans and my family. — Joey Lawrence

The sun is high and I'm surrounded by sand.
For as far as my eyes can see
I'm strapped into a rocking chair
With a blanket over my knees
I am a stranger to myself
And nobody knows I'm here
When I looked into my face
It wasn't myself I'd seen
But who I've tried to be.
I'm thinking of things I'd hoped to forget.
I'm choking to death in a sun that never sets.
I clugged up my mind with perpetual grief
And turned all my friends into enemies
And now that past has returned to haunt me.

I'M SCARED OF GOD AND SCARED OF HELL
AND I'M CAVING IN UPON MYSELF
HOW CAN ANYONE KNOW ME
WHEN I DON'T EVEN KNOW MYSELF — Jose Angel Manas

Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you've been to some of those places, you think, 'How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?' — Jerry Garcia

Wow," the empty air finally said. "Wow. That puts a pretty different perspective on things, I have to say. I'm going to remember this the next time I feel an impulse to blame myself for something. Neville, the term in the literature for this is 'egocentric bias', it means that you experience everything about your own life but you don't get to experience everything else that happens in the world. There was way, way more going on than you running in front of me. You're going to spend weeks remembering that thing you did there for six seconds, I can tell, but nobody else is going to bother thinking about it. Other people spend a lot less time thinking about your past mistakes than you do, just because you're not the center of their worlds. I guarantee to you that nobody except you has even considered blaming Neville Longbottom for what happened to Hermione. Not for a fraction of a second. You are being, if you will pardon the phrase, a silly-dilly. Now shut up and say goodbye. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I'm not ashamed of what I am - of how I pass through this life. What I am has given me the strength to do it. At my lowest ebb I have never contemplated suicide. I value what is here too much. I have a contribution to make. I am not just take up space in this life. I can add something to the lives I touch. I don't like everything I know about myself, and I'll never be satisfied, but nobody's perfect. I'm not sure where the next years will take me - what they will hold - but I'm open to suggestions. — Lauren Bacall

Love will never magically make me whole. It won't heal old wounds. But when I'm around you, I do not feel as if I must be alone. I smile when you're in the room and I laugh when you're happy. I feel as if I've come home to you." He slid his fingers up her arm, around her back. "There isn't one part of me that you've flinched from. I don't know why you'd marry me, but I know why I'm desperate for you. Nobody else on earth would bring me to myself as you have. — Courtney Milan

Your aunt is the dearest woman in the world, and nobody could be fonder of her than I am, but I sometimes find her presence ... what is the word I want ... restrictive. She holds, as you know, peculiar views on the subject of my running around loose in London, as she puts it, and this prevents me fulfilling myself. — P.G. Wodehouse

1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe. 2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance; to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action - the most amiable excellence in a rational being. 3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of suddenly growing rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty. 4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever.17 — Walter Isaacson

If my mom came here today, she'd probably join this red-hat brigade. My mother got my sense of humor, even when I was a kid. I would just do things that tickled my fancy in the moment, and she would ask me who I was entertaining. I'd say, 'Well, me.' And she would tell me that nobody knew that and they thought I was psychotic. Well, I don't ever want people to think I'm psychotic, but I can't help myself from doing these things. — Howie Mandel

To start, I wasn't really interested in acting at all, and I didn't make much impact. The first play I was in was on for five nights and I didn't show up for two of them and nobody noticed. But I stayed because that's where my friends were, and after a while I found myself wanting to inhabit other people's worlds and lives. — Aidan Gillen

Look, we live in a celebrity culture and sometimes you get caught in the wave and the buzz and a lot of it's flattering but, you know, one of the things that I try to remind people of is, is that I was in politics as a state senator operating in obscurity for many years. Before that I was a community organizer working in low income communities in Chicago and nobody knew my name then. And so, having involved myself in public service for a pretty long time without getting too much attention, hopefully I can keep some of the attention that I'm getting now in perspective. — Barack Obama

In my personal life I'm very conservative. I've been married to the same person for nearly 50 years, I'm scrupulous about paying bills, avoiding debt. I'm very careful. But as an actor I'm pretty reckless. I've done a lot of things that, when I see myself on screen, I have to shut my eyes. And I've made a whole bunch of movies that nobody sees, including me. — Christopher Walken

Thank you.
It used to be knee length, but then I discovered that when I get angry I like to cut things.
I'm not allowed to have scissors any more.
It's still pretty lengthy, but I've been threatening to shave half of it for the past week and nobody seems to believe me ...
I do it all myself though because I scream when I'm touched and that scares people. — Emilie Autumn

Alone, with tremendous empty longing and dread. The whole room for my thoughts. Nothing but myself and what I think, what I fear. Could think the most fanastic thoughts, could dance, grimace, curse, wail-nobody would ever know, nobody would ever hear. The thought of such absolute privacy is enough to drive me mad. It's like a clean birth. Everything cut away. Separate, naked, alone. Bliss and agony simultaneously. Time on your hands. Each second weighing on you like a mountain. You drown in it. Deserts, seas, lakes, oceans. Time beating away like a meat ax. Nothingness. The world. The me and the not-me. Oomaharumooma. Everything has to have a name. Everything has to be learned, tested, experencied. — Henry Miller

What if the worst is true? What if there's no God, and you only go around once, and that's it? Don't you want to be a part of the experience? You know, what the hell? It's not all a drag, and I'm thinking to myself: Geez! I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after
who knows? Maybe there is something, nobody really knows. I know that maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. — Woody Allen

When I was depressed, nobody expected anything of me, nor did I expect anything of myself. I was exempt from life's demands and risks. But if I were to find new life, who knows what daunting tasks I might be required to take on? — Parker Palmer

I hate hating myself. It's boring. But there's nobody else to hate. — Christopher Bram

I don't like going to dinner by myself; I'll call for delivery before I do that. It's awkward if you're at a table all alone. I'm sure nobody even notices, but there's something about it. — Max Thieriot

When I planned to ski Everest, the first thing I faced was, 'How can I return alive?' All the preparation and training was based on this question. But the more I prepared, I knew the chance of survival was very slim. Nobody in the world had done this before, so I told myself that I must face death. Otherwise, I am not eligible. — Yuichiro Miura

That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space.
The worst thing is the stupid hopefulness. Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance. That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again.
So I stand on the edge of things, crossing my fingers, praying nobody will try to look me in the eye. And the good thing is, they usually don't. — Carol Rifka Brunt