John Banville Quotes

We must at times search our own souls and discover what we really are. Our real character, much as we would wish, cannot be hidden.

Self-awareness involves deep personal honesty. It comes from asking and answering hard questions.

Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.

You have to self-reflect. If you forget who you actually are, then what's the use of even looking in the mirror.

Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority.

Following your feelings will lead you to their source. Only through emotions can you encounter the force field of your own soul.

Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.

Find your true self. The old question, asked in many ages, "Who am I?" Once you figure out who am I, and you know who am I, then you have that knowledge of self.

The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent.

Books simply help you to see what is already within your self. That's what enlightenment is all about.

The final mystery is oneself... Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul.

Truly know thyself, and to thine own self be true.

I am never more myself than in my self-betrayals.

Go toward self-actualization rather than self-image actualization... Search within... for honest self- expression.

Once you accept and rejoice in your authenticity, you begin to see things as YOU are. You begin to see the authentic self is the Soul made visible. Godspeed on your journey to wholeness.

It's only ... when we're stripped of purpose that we know who we are.

The soul is the truth of who we are.

For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.

The self cannot be found in books. You have to find it for yourself, within yourself.

Come to the Root of the Root of your Self

It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.

Try to discover your true, honest, untheoretical self.

Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.

It takes time to understand yourself, to go inside yourself and to question yourself and really take yourself to task. That's self-expression.