Sarah Addison Allen Quotes

I am a very honest person, and I can only say there are moments in my life where I really did think I was being me in the sense of my morals and beliefs and the way I acted. But when I look back at certain things that I wore and my hair and make-up, I was like, 'Whoa! That wasn't me!' But I didn't know it back then.

We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.

For one thing I tend not to see myself in various moulds that people fit me into.

I never quite became the monster I wanted to be. I feel mostly monstrous as I more become myself. Because the more you become yourself, the more it disturbs other people.

They tell me what to wear, how to look, what I should say, how I should be. Until recently I had given into that pressure, I lost sight of who I was. I listened to opinions of people and I tried to change who I am because I thought others would accept me for it. And I realized I don't know how to be anything but myself.

You cannot really be too concerned with what people think of you. You're on your own adventure of growth and discovery. So it's not always good to be who people think you are, especially if you subscribe to it as well ... which is easily done, because then you don't have to figure out who you are, you just ask somebody else.

The conflict between what one is and who one is expected to be touches all of us. And sometimes, rather than reach for what one could be, we choose the comfort of the failed role, preferring to be the victim of circumstance, the person who didn't have a chance.

I believe so many people live what I call that false identity they are living according to other people's expectations, associations, their experiences, the labels in life. And they buy into that.

We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.

This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values.

We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us

I think you're always policing yourself by trying to do what you think would be "cool" and accepted by other people, until you start to figure out who you really want to be. Growing up is an ongoing push-and-pull of you being yourself and you performing to what society expects you to be.

It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.

Ironically, it was because I was raised as a Muslim in the South, that I realised the value in being true to who you really are. I've just got so many things going on inside. I don't know how to resolve all of them other than being true to who I am.

There's a constant anxiety that comes from having an innate sense of self, yet existing within a homogenised, aspirational culture.

Don't live up to your stereotypes.

I got a tattoo saying 'Made in England' above my foot to represent that, that I felt like a doll for so long.

I always tried so hard to fit in, and then I figured out that I didn't want to fit.

I often don't feel like the person I look like.

I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.

I'm really not sure what people think or expect me to be, but I am surprised when people say, 'You're not supposed to be like that... ' I'm not exactly sure what 'that' is, so I choose to take it as a compliment.

I've learned a lot about how people have to fight through their whole lives just to be themselves.

I'll be me, but I don't like it.

Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins?

You get to an age where you get tired of hiding behind whatever people think is correct.