May Sarton Quotes

I think people make their own faces, as they grow.

One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes.

Everything we know by heart enriches us and helps us find ourselves. If it should get in the way of finding ourselves, it is because we have no personality.

On some level, I think we want our reading self to represent our best self.

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.

I know who I am by now. And I am my own brand.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.

By reshaping or decorating our outer selves, we express our inner sense of self: 'I like that' becomes 'I'm like that.'

I might not ever fully know who I am, but I also believe that I could be whoever I want, whenever I want.

Did you ever wonder if the person in the picture is the same one you see when you look in the mirror?" - "That's the eternal question, isn't it? Are we born who we are, or do we make ourselves that way?

I have no issues with my identity.

I'm always interested in how people, myself included, have ideas of themselves, of how they thought they would be, or of how they want to be seen. And the older you get, the world keeps telling you different things about yourself. And how people either adjust to those things and let go of adolescent notions. Or they dig in deeper.

I'm always thinking about identity. And the middle-school years are a time of exploring questions about who you are and who you want to be. For the first time, you see the world in a broader sense.

You grow and you change, or at least you think you do, but you're kind of the same.

I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think, is that you really must make the self.

It's not hard to keep up the image we chose. It's not hard to stay yourselves.

It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.

I think your self emerges more clearly over time.

We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of.

You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.

I have a producer friend who despairs that I come across as rather frosty and never show the real me, and she might have a point.

Whatever your image is, it's probably not you, but it affords you the freedom to live up to it.

There is no self-portrait of me.

Most of what we say about ourselves is a wonderful piece of storytelling.

My centre of who I thought I was was never very consciously about being beautiful or attractive - I think I'm one of those people who's actually grown into their looks.