The Way I See Myself Quotes & Sayings

For a moment I feel as though I exist outside of my body, as if I'm looking at myself from his perspective. I see my face, my injured arm, these legs that suddenly seem unable to carry my weight. Cracks begin to form along my face, all the way down my arms, my torso, my legs.
I imagine this is what it's like to fall apart. — Tahereh Mafi

More than once, while staring at the wall, I'd thought of Our Lady. I wanted to talk to her, to say, Where do I go from here? But when I'd seen her earlier, when August and I had first come in, she didn't look like she could be of service to anybody, bound up with all that chain around her. You want the one you're praying to at least to look capable. I dragged myself out of bed and went to see her anyway. I decided that even Mary did not need to be one hundred percent capable all the time. The only thing I wanted was for her to understand. Somebody to let out a big sigh and say, You poor thing, I know how you feel. Given a choice, I preferred someone to understand my situation, even though she was helpless to fix it, rather than the other way around. But that's just me. Right — Sue Monk Kidd

I lie in a bathtub of cold water, still sweating and singing love songs to myself. I put the gun to my head and cock it.
I think of my Grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being seen by her. I drop the gun to my chest. I'm so sad and I can't really see a way out of what I'm feeling but I'm leaning on memory for help. Faster. Slower. I think I want to hurt myself more than I'm already hurting. I'm not the smartest boy in the world by a long shot, but even in my funk I know that easy remedies like eating your way out of sad, or fucking your way out of sad, or lying your way out of sad, or slanging your way out of sad, or robbing your way out of sad, or gambling your way out of sad, or shooting your way out of sad, are just slower, more acceptable ways for desperate folks, and especially paroled black boys in our country, to kill ourselves and others close to us in America. — Kiese Laymon

I love the idea of God, but it's not stylistically in keeping with the way I function. I would describe myself as an enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God. I can see that people who believe in God are happier ... But I doubt. — Carrie Fisher

I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way. — Beth Grant

For the first time since Ben died, I look like a widow. For the first time since I lost him, I feel like I recognize the person in the mirror. There I am, grief-stricken and un-whole. Widowed. It's such a relief to see myself this way. I have felt so insecure in my widowness that seeing myself look like a widow comforts me. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I enjoy catching our show whenever I can. It does get very weird to watch myself, it's always been that way, but at the same time, it's part of my job to see what kind of job I'm doing and to get a perspective on where I'm taking the character. — James Lafferty

Because it's a fucking disaster to be creative when you know you're not Mozart or Keats. Dammit, I got tired of scratching around in my past. There's nothing in me to justify the pretension of creativity. This came before anything, before you, before Raquel, this is a matter of my own emptiness, my awareness of my own limits, maybe my sterility. Does what I'm saying to you seem awful? Now you want to come along and sell me an illusion, which I don't believe in but which does make me believe that either you're a fool or you underestimate my intelligence. Why don't you just leave me alone, so I can fill the emptiness in my own way? Let me see things for myself, learn if something can still grow in my soul, an idea, a faith, because I swear to you, Laura, my soul is more desolate than this rock landscape you see here ... why? — Carlos Fuentes

Everyone seems to see bleakness and despair in my books. I don't read them that way. I see myself as writing comic books, books about ordinary people trying to live ordinary, dull, happy lives while the world is falling to pieces around them. — J.M. Coetzee

Nowhere can I think so happily as in a train. I am not inspired; nothing so uncomfortable as that. I am never seized with a sudden idea for a masterpiece, nor form a sudden plan for some new enterprise. My thoughts are just pleasantly reflective. I think of all the good deeds I have done, and (when these give out) of all the good deeds I am going to do. I look out of the window and say lazily to myself, "How jolly to live there"; and a little farther on, "How jolly not to live there." I see a cow, and I wonder what it is like to be a cow, and I wonder whether the cow wonders what it is to be like me; and perhaps, by this time, we have passed on to a sheep, and I wonder if it is more fun being a sheep. My mind wanders on in a way which would annoy Pelman a good deal, but it wanders on quite happily, and the "clankety-clank" of the train adds a very soothing accompaniment. So soothing, indeed, that at any moment I can close my eyes and pass into a pleasant state of sleep. — A.A. Milne

I've always been a producer - that's how I see myself first. The DJing came second as a way for me to be able to perform. — Avicii

I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself. — Elisabeth Shue

All I can see when I look at him is a belt swinging toward Tobias, and the butt of a gun slamming into Caleb's jaw. I don't care that he hurt Caleb
I would have done it, too
but that he is simultaneously a man who knows how to hurt people and a man who parades around as the self-effacing leader of Abnegation, suddenly makes me so angry I can't see straight.
Especially because I chose him. I chose him over Tobias.
"Your brother is a traitor," says Marcus as we turn a corner. "He deserved worse. There's no need to look at me that way."
"Shut up!" I shout, shoving him hard into the wall. He is too surprised to push back. "I hate you, you know that! I hate you for what you did to him, and I am not talking about Caleb." I lean close to his face and whisper, "And while I may not shoot you myself, I will definitely not help you if someone tries to kill you, so you'd better hope to God we don't get into that situation. — Veronica Roth

I would love to close my eyes and see myself with my girlfriend when we're 99 years old and I have a pipe and she's knitting a sweater, and I hope that's the way it goes. I think it's a challenge every day. — Chris Messina

You are where I unlock myself, where I say that I have often put down my wooden spoon to stare out the kitchen window to see the men I thought were magic for their story-telling or their way of walking, or the ones I was so strongly sexually attracted to, even though they weren't good people - at least not for me. — Elizabeth Berg

After directing awhile, you get an instinct about it, but you have to be able to trust your own feelings. Invariably, two-thirds of the way through a film, you say, "Jeezus, is this a pile of crap! What did I ever see in it in the first place?" You have to shut off your brain and forge ahead, because by that time you're getting so brainwashed. Once I commit myself to a film I commit myself to that ending, whatever the motivations and conclusions are. — Clint Eastwood

I guess maybe my art can be said to be a protest. I see things a certain way, and as an artist I'm privileged in that arena to protest or say publicly what I'm thinking about. Maybe the strongest work I've done is because it was done with indignation. Considering myself as a feminist, I don't want my work to be a reaction to what male art might be or what art with a capital A would be. I just want it to be art. In a convoluted way, I am protesting- protesting the usual way art is looked at, being shoved into a period or category. — Nancy Spero

As far as the persona, I'm true to myself. Not because I'm arrogant, but I'm true to myself because I believe that you have to stand for something. When you start sacrificing that, even if it's just a line in a song or something you say on the mic at a show, or the way you treat someone when you see them out in public, that all reflects on who you are. — Cody Johnson

The Wart's own special one was called Cavall, and he happened to be licking Cavall's nose - not the other way about - when Merlyn came in and found him.
That will be regarded as an unsanitary habit," said Merlyn, "though I cannot see it myself. After all, God made the creature's nose just as well as he made your tongue. — T.H. White

My main concern with the condition of mathematics in high school is that there's a lot of fear involved! Math is not, generally speaking, presented in a fun way. The concepts, as I see them, are fun, and that's the way I'd like to convey them myself. — Danica McKellar

I remember this scene because it was embarrassing to live through it, and because remembering it is a way of knowing that I am half-true to my beliefs when the time comes. I sit silently defending them and I don't sell them out, but I put on a face that lets people think I'm on the winning team, that I'm laughing along with them instead of just standing among them. I save the best parts for myself and savor them in silence. Number three, power of flight. Number four, marauder. Enough vision to really see something. A stack of gold coins and a ledger. People want all kinds of things out of life, I knew early on. — John Darnielle

This, I told myself, this is the way I shall be condemned to pass my days, turning over words, stray lines, fragments of memory, to see what might be lurking underneath them, as if they were so many flat stones, while I steadily faded. — John Banville

Uncle Jeff insisted that I also take a tray of unseasoned barbecue, so I could see for myself that what's going on here at the Skylight Inn does not in any way, shape, or form depend for it's flavor or quality on "sauce." That is a word he pronounces with an upturned lip and a slight sneer, suggesting that the use of barbecue sauce was at best a culinary crutch deserving of pity and at worst a moral failing. — Michael Pollan

And I could test myself - my own courage - with it, too, because when the doors at either end of the secret staircase were closed, it was impenetrably dark. I hid in the staircase, shivering with terror, telling the narrative: The little girl was in a dark, dark place but she was very brave ... Sometimes the door at the bottom opened, and a wedge of light sliced up the stairs; a maid, her arms filled with folded laundry, would find me and ask in amazement what I was doing there.
And though I answered lightheartedly that I was playing, the truth is that I was not entirely certain what I was doing there, crouched and frightened in the darkness. Only now, sixty years later, do I see that I was arming myself, rehearsing panic, loss, and helplessness; assessing my own cowardice and courage, and and the same time reassuring myself that the door would always open, that the light would always find its way in. — Lois Lowry

It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs. — Donna Tartt

For communication to have meaning it must have a life. It must transcend "you and me" and become "us." If I truly communicate, I see in you a life that is not me and partake of it. And you see and partake of me. In a small way we then grow out of our old selves and become something new. To have this kind of sharing I cannot enter into a conversation clutching myself. I must enter into it with loose boundaries. I must give myself to the relationship, and be willing to be what grows out of it. — Hugh Prather

At least this is the way I see it. I am a physicist. I also consider myself a Christian. As I try to understand the nature of our universe in these two modes of thinking, I see many commonalities and crossovers between science and religion. It seems logical that in the long run the two will even converge. — Charles Hard Townes

Pops says he loves me just the way I am, but not everyone in the world is like my father. Maman, for example. A difficult and dissatisfied woman. She made me learn flower arranging and how to walk properly
books on my head, the whole bit. These things ruined me for life. Now it sets my teeth on edge when I see flowers carelessly flung into a vase, and I'm forever looking at other women in the street and thinking, [I]Sloppy ... sloppy[/I]. And I know I shouldn't care, and I want to poke myself in the eye for caring, but I care anyway, so thanks for that, Maman. — Helen Oyeyemi

People just try to put you in a box and I don't see myself in any particular box. I'm making my own box. There's no way I would be able to make the music I'm making without dancing ... — Jillian Hervey

He shook his head. You're asking that I make myself vulnerable and that I can never do. I have only one way to live. It doesn't allow for special cases. A coin toss perhaps. In this case to small purpose. Most people don't believe that there can be such a person. You see what a problem that must be for them. How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of. Do you understand? When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That there could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way. You're asking that I second say the world. Do you see?
Yes, she said sobbing. I do. I truly do.
Good, he said. That's good. Then he shot her. — Cormac McCarthy

I've always cared about my personal style and the way people perceive me. I know a lot of times people don't get the opportunity to talk to me, so they're just going to see what I wear, see how I'm dressed, see how I present myself. — Dwyane Wade

I don't see myself as having made the transition. I aim to be more transient than transitional. Life is constantly changing, now at a rate faster than ever, so being in a transitory state is the best way to keep pace. — Marc Forster

As an author the question I get asked the most is, "why do you write?" My knee jerk response is, "Because I love it," which is true, but not the whole truth.
So here is my revised response to that question; "I write for the thirteen year old me who hated reading and craved something different than the boring literature I was forced to read for school. I write to see something I want to read exist in the world. I write because it becomes unbearable to hold so many stories in my head without a way to express them, but most importantly, I write to be true to myself. — Day Parker

It no longer makes me cry and die and tear myself to see her go because everything goes away from me like that now - girls, visions, anything, just in the same way and forever and I accept lostness forever. — Jack Kerouac

I'm more excited than I'll admit when my hand closes around the paperback. It's like I've been handed a secret, a piece of her soul that she just decided to entrust with me. That's the way with writers--every word on a page like a window into their private place, exposing a great deal of vulnerability when they allow others to see inside. Even fiction is made up of the truthful scars of the people telling the story. I should know. I tell the same stories myself every day. — Amy Matayo

Such gratitude! It hurt me to see you lose your professional standing, McGee. Like you were going soft and sentimental. So, through my own account, I put us into Fletcher and rode it up nicely and took us out, and split the bonus right down the middle. It's short-term. It's a check. Pay your taxes. Live a little. It's a longer retirement this time. We can gather up a throng and go blundering around on this licentious craft and get the remorses for saying foolish things while in our cups. We had a salvage contract, idiot, and the fee is comparatively small but fair."
"And you are comparatively large but fair."
"I think of myself that way. Where did the check go? Into the pocket so fast? Good." he looked at his watch. "I am taking a lady to lunch. Make a nice neat deck there, Captain." And away he went, humming. — John D. MacDonald

We live in an age where the artist is forgotten. He is a researcher. I see myself that way. — David Hockney

At some point during my research, I came across the term "gender fluid." Reading those words was a revelation. It was like someone tore a layer of gauze off the mirror, and I could see myself clearly for the first time. There was a name for what I was. It was a thing. Gender fluid.

Sitting there in front of my computer--like I am right now--I knew I would never be the same. I could never go back to seeing it the old way; I could never go back to not knowing what I was.

But did that glorious moment of revelation really change anything? I don't know. Sometimes, I don't think so. I may have a name for what I am now--but I'm just as confused and out of place as I was before. And if today is any indication, I'm still playing out that scene in the toy store--trying to pick the thing that will cause the least amount of drama. And not having much success. — Jeff Garvin

... there is not a day of my life that I am not critiquing myself to see if my politics are borne out in the way that I live and the way that I talk and present myself. — Bell Hooks

Philosophy goes into the problem deeply, without changing being at all. Religion tells me that I have been created; that I am continuously receiving myself from divine hands, that I am free yet living from God's strength. Try to feel your way into this truth, and your whole attitude towards life will change. You will see yourself in an entirely new perspective. What once seemed self-understood becomes questionable. Where once you were indifferent, you become reverent; where self-confident, you learn to know "fear and trembling." But where formerly you felt abandoned, you will now feel secure, living as a child of the Creator-Father, and the knowledge that this is precisely what you are will alter the very tap-root of your being — Romano Guardini

This passage, by the way, doesn't just give us the comparative negative of hell, but it translates well into a theology of suffering. With these words of Jesus in mind, I can now know that it is better never to hold my children, it is better never to run my fingers through my wife's hair, it is better not to be able to brush my own teeth, it is better never to be able to drive a car, it is better to be paralyzed and never feel anything from the neck down, and it is better to have stage III anaplastic oligondendroglioma than to find myself outside the kingdom of God.
It is better never to see the sunset or the sunrise, never see the stars in the sky, never to see my daughter in her little dress-up clothes, never to see my son throw a ball - it is better never to have seen those things than to have seen those things and yet end up outside the kingdom of God. How horrible hell must be. — Matt Chandler

One great distinction, I appeared to myself to see plainly between even the characteristic faults of our elder poets, and the false beauty of the moderns. In the former, from Donne to Cowley, we find the most fantastic out-of-the-way thoughts, but in the most pure and genuine mother English, in the latter the most obvious thoughts, in language the most fantastic and arbitrary. Our faulty elder poets sacrificed the passion and passionate flow of poetry to the subtleties of intellect and to the stars of wit; the moderns to the glare and glitter of a perpetual, yet broken and heterogeneous imagery, or rather to an amphibious something, made up, half of image, and half of abstract meaning. The one sacrificed the heart to the head; the other both heart and head to point and drapery. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

My dad died, I write. almost a year ago. Car accident. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add Not his fault before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks.
As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's face again, and the normally white white whites of his eyes are pink. This causes major disruption to my ability to control the flow of my own tears. I see myself when I look at him right now: he's reflecting my sadness, my broken heart, back to me.
He takes the pe, writes, and slides it over. You'd think it's something epic from the way it levels my heart. It isn't.
I'm really sorry, Jill.
Four little words. — Sara Zarr

I am leaving in order to have peace and quiet. To be rid of the influence of civilization. I only want to do simple, very simple art and to be able to do that, I have to immerse myself in virgin nature, see no one but savages, live their life, with no other thought in my mind but to render, the way a child would, the concepts formed in my brain and to do this with the aid of nothing but the primitive means of art, the only means that are good and true. — Paul Gauguin

I had imagined a kind, ugly, intuitive man looking up and saying "Ah!" in an encouraging way, as if he could see something I couldn't and then I would find words to tell him how I was so scared, as I were being stuffed farther and farther into a black, airless sack with no way out.
Then he would lean back in his chair and match the tips of his fingers together in a little steeple and tell me why I couldn't sleep and why I couldn't read and why I couldn't eat and why everything people did seemed so silly, because they only died in the end.
And then, I thought, he would help me, step by step, to be myself again. — Sylvia Plath

I scurry out to the three-way mirror. With an extra-large sweatshirt over the top, you can hardly tell that they are Effert's jeans. Still no Mom. I adjust the mirror so I can see reflections of reflections, miles and miles of me and my new jeans. I hook my hair behind my ears. I should have washed it. My face is dirty. I lean into the mirror. Eyes after eyes after eyes stare back at me. Am I in there somewhere? A thousand eyes blink. No makeup. Dark circles. I pull the side flaps of the mirror in closer, folding myself into the looking glass and blocking out the rest of the store. My face becomes a Picasso sketch, my body slicing into dissecting cubes. I saw a movie once where a woman was burned over eighty percent of her body and they had to wash all the dead skin off. They wrapped her in bandages, kept her drugged, and waited for skin grafts. They actually sewed her into a new skin. — Laurie Halse Anderson

The first cut wasn't the deepest. No, not at all. It was like all the others, a subtle rend of anxious skin, a gentle pulse of crimson, just enough to hush the demons shrieking inside my brain. But this time they wouldn't shut up. Just kept on howling, like Mama, when she was in a bad way. Worst thing was, the older I got, the more I began to see how much I resembled Mama, falling in and out of blue, then lifting up into the white. That day I actually thought about howling. So I gave myself to the knife, asked it to bite a little harder, chew a little deeper. The hot, scarlet rush felt so delicious I couldn't stop there. The blade might have reached bone, but my little brother, Bryan, barged into the bathroom, found me leaning against Grandma's new porcelain tub, turning its unstained white pink. You should have heard him scream. — Ellen Hopkins

Instructions For Wayfarers They will declare: Every journey has been taken. You shall respond: I have not been to see myself. They will insist: Everything has been spoken. You shall reply: I have not had my say. They will tell you: Everything has been done. You shall reply: My way is not complete. You are warned: Any way is long, any way is hard. Fear not. You are the gate - you, the gatekeeper. And you shall go through and on ... - Alexandros Evangelou Xenopouloudakis, THIRD WISH — Robert Fulghum

Lennie rolled off the bunk and stood up, and the two of them started for the door. Just as they reached it, Curley bounced in.
"You seen a girl around here?" he demanded angrily.
George said coldly, "'Bout half an hour ago maybe."
"Well, what the hell was she doin'?"
George stood still, watching the angry little man. He said insultingly, "She said
she was lookin' for you."
Curley seemed really to see George for the first time. His eyes flashed over George, took in his height, measured his reach, looked at his trim middle. "Well, which way'd she go?" he demanded at last.
"I dunno," said George. "I didn't watch her go."
Curley scowled at him, and turning, hurried out the door.
George said, "Ya know, Lennie, I'm scared I'm gonna tangle with that bastard myself. I hate his guts. Jesus Christ! Come on. There won't be a damn thing left to eat. — John Steinbeck

I limited myself to introduce a change in my way of thinking and the way I see things. When I look at my child, I do it in a different way then when I'm contemplating a chair. They are different ... the child is a living being, and the chair is an object. — Meg Tilly

It is good to see people happy with one another. It is a glimpse of a world in which everyone is that way. A happy world might be boring, I told myself, but watching Jake grin at Cleo grinning at Jake grinning at Cleo and back again, I thought it was worth the risk. — Lemony Snicket

If, while I'm painting, I distort or destroy a motif, it is not a planned or conscious act, but rather it has a different justification: I see the motif, the way I painted it, is somehow ugly or unbearable. Then I try to follow my feelings and make it attractive. And that means a process of painting, changing or destroying - for however long it takes - until I think it has improved. And I don't demand an explanation from myself as to why this is so. — Gerhard Richter

... I see that something's are hard to do, but that you can't live with yourself if you don't do them. I see that the best way to help myself is to help the people I care about. The rest will sort itself out. It has to, right? — Trenton Lee Stewart

I hollowed out, stopped listening to music, never picked up a pencil, started slipping into old habits. All of the vibrancy I used to see became de-saturated. Lost Slowly, once I had done enough damage to myself, I began to climb out of the hole. Clean. When I made it out, the only thing left inside was the voice, and for the second time in my life, I no longer ignored it - because it was my own. — Gerard Way

I feel we are becoming divergent upon the paths we are walking down. I feel we are becoming distant, as the way we see things becomes more pronounced. I feel I know you less, where once I knew you like I knew myself before. I fear that in the end, we will become no more. When that guillotine descends, friend will be friend no longer. As time ascends, we will move forward on different paths in life's Wonderland. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Taking a risk is always frightening, but I gave myself a set period of time and had enough money to see me through. I operated from the belief that things would be okay, that if I wasn't successful I would find myself a job, but either way, I would be fine. — Jane Green

Loads of my friends are gay, I don't see myself in any sense as being opposed to gay rights, but I did express a view before the election - which by the way was also expressed by the party but then they changed their mind - that we didn't support gay marriage which is, I suppose for some, the ultimate destination, but not for everybody. — Lucinda Creighton

The expression, 'I did it of my own free will' is perfectly correct when it is understood to mean 'I did it because I wanted to; nothing compelled or caused me to do it since I could have acted otherwise had I desired.' This expression was necessarily misinterpreted because of the general ignorance that prevailed for although it is correct in the sense that a person did something because he wanted to, this in no way indicates that his will is free. In fact I shall use the expression 'of my own free will' frequently myself which only means 'of my own desire.' Are you beginning to see how words have deceived everyone? — Seymour Lessans

I love the way she feels in
the curve of my arm. I love
her unpretentious beauty,
her intelligence, her nerve.
But could I ever love her?
The concept of falling in love
is completely foreign, something
I can't bring myself to accept.
Her hair pillows my cheek and
her hand on my leg is warm.
I care about you, Conner,
and I hate to see you hurting.
I want to respond but can't
find the pretty words I need. — Ellen Hopkins

Do you know my best quality?" she asks.
"Of your many, I could not say, my darling."
"I see the best in people. I fall in love with people when I see a window into their beings, their shining moments. I've fallen in love with so many people but the trouble is I fall out of love so quickly too. I see the worst in them just as easily.
"Do you know I fell in love with you right away? That day at the Trotters' I had noted you because you were new, of course, and then you sat down at the piano, and you played a few notes, but you played them so well, with no self consciousness, and no idea that anyone might be listening. It was in that room off the garden and you were the only one there. I was passing through on the way to the ladies' room and saw you there. I fell in love with you right then, and so I slipped my drink all over myself so I could meet you." — Janice Y.K. Lee

I am a teacher. It's how I define myself. A good teacher isn't someone who gives the answers out to their kids but is understanding of needs and challenges and gives tools to help other people succeed. That's the way I see myself, so whatever it is that I will do eventually after politics, it'll have to do a lot with teaching. — Justin Trudeau

Could I see myself with a British boyfriend? Absolutely. The way they wear their pants is so cute. Guys don't do it in America. Their style is cute. I just feel like Brits are honest - period. And that's what I like. — Kelly Rowland

I stood with my hands on the horses' necks, feeling the electricity of their thinking, the blood moving throughout their veins, and the history held neatly within the fabric of every organ of their equine anatomy, as if the body were a storage unit of memory. As I absorbed every nuance of the four-legged creatures, I touched my own stomach, lower back, liver, and spleen to see what the energies felt like. I compared one horse to another, then to myself, fascinated by the way each was so unique yet so the same. — Bethanne Elion

I definitely see the good in people. Certainly in my own life I strive to be somebody who is functional and well adjusted and can face conflict in a non-emotional and non-destructive way, and those are the people I try to surround myself with in my life. But as characters, they bore me. — Alan Ball

Prospero, you are the master of illusion.
Lying is your trademark.
And you have lied so much to me
(Lied about the world, lied about me)
That you have ended by imposing on me
An image of myself.
Underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,
That s the way you have forced me to see myself
I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie!
But now I know you, you old cancer,
And I know myself as well. — Aime Cesaire

When I see a movie, the music often gets in the way for me. It's something that, say, for myself and Claire, we never, ever speak about. We never speak about describing emotion. I think it's about color and movement. And I think it's important to let the images be the melody, as well, a lot of the time - to create a kind of a backing for that, to let it sing. — Stuart A. Staples

Before that I had largely thought of selling as just a way of making a living for myself. I had dreaded to go in to see people, for fear I was making a nuisance of myself. But now I was inspired! I resolved right then to dedicate the rest of my selling career to this principle: finding out what people want, and helping them get it. — Frank Bettger

It was then Jessica realized he wasn't using his left hand at all, and that he held the arm oddly, as though something were wrong with it. There shouldn't be except for a minor bullet wound. She'd aimed carefully, and she was an excellent markswoman. Not to mention he was a very large target.
He looked her way then, and caught her staring. Admiring your handiwork, are you? I daresay you'd like a better look. Regrettably, there's nothing to see. There's nothing wrong with it, according to the quacks. Except that it doesn't work. Still, I count myself fortunate, Miss Trent, that you didn't aim a ways lower. I'm merely disarmed, not dismanned. But I have no doubt that Herriard here will see to the emasculation. — Loretta Chase

I see myself on top, doing what I love to do, and doing it the way I want to do it. No rules, just doing my own thing. — ASAP Ferg

I feel nervous when the script is set in stone, and I feel nervous when I feel the script is written for mass consumption because I don't see myself that way. — Jenny Slate

Good evening, London. I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name. You can call me "V". Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say anarchy's dead, but see ... reports of my death were ... exaggerated. Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before. Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. And so, adieu. — Alan Moore

I don't see myself as a very important person. But I was the second woman to write a novel in Iran, and I have written most of the novels about Iranian women. In this way, maybe I have a good place in Iranian literature. — Shahrnush Parsipur

When I have a difficult subject before me - when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools - I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace. — Maimonides

I did not see any way that I could possibly give birth to someone else and also give birth to myself. Far from feeling guilty, it was the first time that I had taken responsibility for my own life. — Gloria Steinem

If I put myself on the side of those who see the world as warming up in a bad way, who see the general march of industrial culture as something undesirable, the one thing I must be beware of doing and which my colleagues on that side don't beware of doing, we must beware of saying we've got to stop changing the environment. There is no 'the' environment which we can change, the world is changing all the time. — Richard Lewontin

The way I feel about suicide is, I like knowing it's there. I like having it as an option. Because if I'm going to kill myself, then nothing really matters, so I might as well stick around for one more day. Just to see what happens. Out of curiosity. If I'm going to die anyway, then nothing is of particular consequence, so why not see what happens next? That way all I have to do is live until tomorrow. I know I can always handle one more day. — Nina De Gramont

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

Here's a question I still can't answer: Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice? — Jeffrey Eugenides

I've never seen myself as a celebrity, but I see it in a positive way, the fact that people are still interested in most parts of my life. — David Beckham

those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS CAeSAR, of whom Bacon observes, that 'in his book of Apothegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an oracle.' Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following pages to the candour of the Publick. — Anonymous

I do see the good in people, but I also see the bad
I see it in myself. I know what I'm capable of. Good and bad. It's very imnportant that we make that clear. Just because I often find a way around the darkness doesn't mean tjat I don't know it's there. (Bono) — Bono

I'll tell you all about it, but let's eat first. I've had nothing to eat. Although I was offered some raw squirrel. Canned pudding, that's what I want. I've been dreaming about it."
She hauled out a can and feverishly worked the can opener. She didn't wait for a dish or spoon, but thrust her hand in and scooped some into her mouth. Then she stood transfixed, overwhelmed by the wonderful sweetness of it.
She was crying when she said, "I'm sorry, I've forgotten how to be polite. I'll get you guys your own can."
Sam hobbled over and scooped some pudding of his own, following her lead. "I'm way past polite myself," he said, although she could see he was a little appalled by her wolfish behavior. She decided then that she liked him. — Michael Grant

A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don't always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn't sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn't have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself. — James Baldwin

I had to learn to think, feel and see in a totally new fashion, in an uneducated way, in my own way, which is the hardest thing in the world. I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink. The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life-preservers around their necks, and more often than not it is the life-preserver which sinks them. — Henry Miller

And then suddenly I hear his footsteps approaching. He's behind me, thirty feet away, at a guess.
No wonder I couldn't see him.
I should turn. Right now I should turn. This is the moment that it would be natural to swivel round
and greet him. Call out a hello; wave my phone in the air.
But my feet are rooted to the spot. I can't bring myself to move. Because as soon as I do, it will be
time to be polite and matter-of-fact and back to normal. And I can't bear that. I want to stay here. In
the place where we can say anything to each other. In the magic spell.
Sam pauses, right behind me. There's an unbearable fragile beat as I wait for him to shatter the quiet. But it's as though he feels the same way. He says nothing. All I can hear is the gentle sound
of his breathing. Slowly, his arms wrap round me from behind. I close my eyes and lean back
against his chest, feeling unreal. — Sophie Kinsella

I don't HAVE Autism, I am Autistic. It doesn't mean I see myself as a 'disability' first and a person second. I'm me, you cannot separate 'the Autism' out of me. I'm wired this way. I was born this way. I am this way — Tina J. Richardson

There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind, for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: I am not long for this world and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work. — James Joyce

Literature offers us a different way of seeing things. The reading of literature opens our eyes, offering us new perspectives on things that we can evaluate and adopt. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. . . . In reading great literature, I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.[94] — Alister E. McGrath

I am an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I'm in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse's mouth. I fall and rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine, manoeuvring in the chaotic movements, recording one moment after another in the most complex combinations.
Freed from the boundaries of time and space. I co-ordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you. - Dziga Vertov 1923 — John Berger

There are some things around us that are not actually useful. I didn't know that before. It's very new for me to understand. That became my way of writing: I can see also the new myself. — Rokia Traore

I see stunning men walking on the street everyday. Some walk shirtless because it's hot and they feel more comfortable that way. Do I scream out at them, beep at them or whistle? No, I smile to myself in appreciation of them and drive on by. Why? Because I believe they have the right to go about their lives without me imposing my sexual desire upon them. — Miya Yamanouchi

Look who's talking,' Darren repeated, angrier this time. 'I might've welcomed her along in hunts, but I wasn't tripping over myself to talk to her every night. Everyone could see the way you looked at the girl. You weren't exactly subtle, you know. Ruth nearly had kittens every time the two of you went off to do something. So don't lecture me about getting attached, Zeke. You were falling for that vampire - we all knew it. Maybe you'd better check your own neck before you go pointing fingers at other people. Seems to me the vampire could've bitten you anytime she wanted - — Julie Kagawa

I can't assume that people see me the way I see myself. I have to show them. But I can't do it in a way where it's too much, where it's rude. I feel like when you're a king, you lead. And I just see myself as a king, or as something more than just a regular human being. — Shameik Moore

Self-betrayal" 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of "self-betrayal." 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So - when I betray myself, I enter the box. — The Arbinger Institute

A person's sense of morality and responsibility to other human beings, must not come from a professed faith or belief system. Because when it does - it is merely a projection and not an internalization. A person must be able to say "I believe this, I do this, I say this, because this is who I am; not because I see myself as a member of so and so belief system." Adam and Eve walked with God every day in the garden of Eden and yet, they still chose their own way. This only means that their own way had nothing to do with God's way. Even if they walked with God physically, daily, in a garden! This is witness to the fact that your sense of morality and responsibility must be incarnated within you. In fact, this is the beauty of God - to unfold your own spirit within you - and then you see your own spirit and say that it is indeed beautiful. — C. JoyBell C.

For you see, Captain Flint, I, too, never settle for less than what I want. Or never thought I possibly could. I'm a Redmond. If only you truly understood what this means. So I set out to reorder the world in a way I thought would make me worthy of her love. But my quest has changed me in ways I never anticipated, and I'm not the man who once loved that girl. There's much more to my journey yet. And here's a bitter irony: I've found in becoming heroic, in becoming worthy of her, I've painted myself into an untenable corner. I've more work to do to prove someone's innocence or guilt. — Julie Anne Long

As no two people see the world the same way, all trips from here to there are imaginary; all truth is a tale I am telling myself. — Brion Gysin

The way I look at it within myself, why not? Why can't I be the MVP of the League? Why can't I be the best player in the League? I don't see why-why-why can't I do that? I think I work hard, I think I dedicate myself to the game and sacrifice a lot of things at a young age and I know if I continue to do good, what I can get out of it and if that's me going out or doing whatever, I'm willing to do it because I know in the long run, it's going to help me. — Derrick Rose

If I had to wish for something, just one thing, it would be that Hannah would never see Tate the way I did. Never see Tate's beautiful, lush hair turn brittle, her skin sallow, her teeth ruined by anything she could get her hands on that would make her forget. That Hannah would never count how many men there were, or how vile humans can be to one another. That she would never see the moments in my life that were full of neglect, and fear, and revulsion, moments I can never go back to because I know they will slow me down for the rest of my life if I let myself remember them for one moment. Tate, who had kept Hannah alive that night, reading her the story of Jem Finch and Mrs. Dubose. And suddenly I know I have to go. But this time without being chased by the Brigadier, without experiencing the kindness of a postman from Yass, and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breath for the rest of my life. — Melina Marchetta