Markus Zusak Quotes

I find myself fascinating.

Actors and actresses who say they never go to see their own pictures are talking through their hats. You don't have to be a Freud to know that the most fascinating person in the world - actors or anybody - is yourself.

My personality doesn't interest me.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person.

He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself.

This autobiography of mine is a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back - I get glimpses of them in the mirror - and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation, I set these things down in my autobiography.

He who knows himself well is mean and abject in his own sight, and takes no delight in the vain praise of men.

It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.

Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face – there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes. Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself. The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.

From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement.

I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.

No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually ... I know what we could make of it if people only thought we could dare look at ourselves.

It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning around.

One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself.

I've been living with myself all of my life, so I know all of me. So when I watch me, all I see is me. It's boring.

If I can avoid looking at myself, I will. I don't care to examine myself or see much of what I do. I never care how I look.

In truth, to know oneself seems to be the hardest of all things. Not only our eye, which observes external objects, does not use the sense of sight upon itself, but even our mind, which contemplates intently another's sin, is slow in the recognition of its own defects.

I'm not good at watching myself.

It's such a weird thing: to sit and look at yourself is so distracting to the psyche. It would be like me standing in front of a mirror and looking at myself all day, trying to find a flaw.

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

Sometimes I forget that I am even watching myself, realizing that's me. It's like you almost become a fan yourself: You are just this normal person watching this show, and then you realize that it's your show. It's weird sometimes.

When I look in the mirror, I am slightly reminded of self-portraits by Durer and by Rembrandt, because they both show a degree of introspection. I see some element of disappointment; I see a sense of humour, but also something that is faintly ridiculous; and I see somebody who is frightened of being found out and thought lightweight.

I try not to be super self-referential about my work because it becomes like navel gazing at a certain point.

I don't find myself intriguing.

I hope that when you see my work, you are looking at yourself looking.