Lloyd Alexander Quotes

My personality doesn't interest me.

'Shortcomings' was me figuring out who I am.

It is not pride when the beech-tree refuses to copy the oak. He knows his limitations. The only chance of any healthy life for him is to be as full a beech-tree as he can.

I never had time to dream about being anyone else.

What you are is a question only you can answer.

People have to learn who they are - you can't have somebody else telling you who you are.

The ultimate mystery is one's own self.

Figure out who you are.

I think self-knowledge is the rarest trait in a human being.

I'm asked all the time in interviews about who I am, and I know a few people my age who have a strong sense of self, but I couldn't say I know myself and sum it up and give it to you in a little package. I don't know myself at all yet.

I didn't want to make cinema so a person forgets himself and has a lot of fun. 'I forget myself, I am a little poor consumer.' I wanted to make a picture where someone who sees it say, 'This is me! This is me!'

The fact is that all of us have only one personality, and we wring it out like a dishtowel. You are what you are.

Know thyself.

In order to find yourself, who you really are, you got to be with yourself; you got to hang out with yourself.

There's only one person who knows me - and that's me.

I see the ups and downs. I see the mistakes I've made. I see a funny person. I see a serious person. I see a diamond. I see the good times. I see the bad times. And I see knowledge of self. I see knowledge of self. I know who I am. When I look in the mirror, I see me.

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

I like when people know exactly, have a good sense of themselves, and know exactly what's good for them, I admire that, but I don't have anywhere near that kind of perspective on my own.

To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.

I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.

There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.

To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation; to elude oneself is the romantic.

The precept, "Know yourself," was not solely intended to obviate the pride of mankind; but likewise that we might understand our own worth.

The outlines of the needed psychology of becoming can be discovered by looking within ourselves; for it is knowledge of our own uniqueness that supplies the first, and probably the best, hints for acquiring orderly knowledge of others.

At which point should we let go and do what we want to do, and when should we submit to rules? Coming to terms with our true natures and who we really are has always been a fascination to humans. I know it fascinates me.