Diana Vreeland Quotes

It took me a long time to grow up.

I don't think you learn as much about yourself when you are moving forwards as when you have fallen backwards. That's when you really learn who you are. And reach for the things that have propelled you forward and made you a better person.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

I don't know what I could say specifically, except that everything I've learned as a kid of course must somehow play into what I do now. I think when everything kind of drifted away, I had to go out into the world and learn how to emotionally be okay with all that, which to me was a decades-long process. But also I happened to find my way in life, to find a living, to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up. I think all of that now probably helps me. It probably gives me more life experience to draw from.

I think that all of the scars and all of the layers that I've built over the years made me the person that I am today, and I'm pretty happy about that person.

I went through so many things personally, emotionally and mentally during that time off that I know that I'm better for it now and I think I'm a better athlete because of that.

Your emotional life is not written in cement during childhood. You write each chapter as you go along.

Life is about growth. People are not perfect when they're 21 years old.

You have good days, you have bad days. But the main thing is to grow mentally.

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.

I always thought I could be brave and charge at things and smash 'em and walk away, but it takes courage to sit and look at things and say, 'This is what I am. How do I fix it? How do I live with it?'

Emotion is a broad spectrum and I just been to a lot of sides of my own emotions.

When I reflect on the losses I've experienced, I've come to believe that those experiences were transformative, that they shaped who I am.

I hope that I'm also maturing emotionally as a human being as things go on.

In a series of wonderful essays, Evan Handler gives himself up to us - warts and all. To our amusement and bemusement we share in his emotional growth as he struggles to mature. I not only laughed along with him but felt that I too had grown a little along the way. Who could ask for more?

Don't let yourself feel worthless: often through life you will really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself; and don't worry about losing your "personality," as you persist in calling it: at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial golden warmth of 4 p.m.

I like to think the world wasn't ready for me, but maybe the truth is that I wasn't ready for the world. I've always arrived too late for my life.

I think it would do a lot of people good just to realize how vulnerable they are.

Great men suffer hours of depression through introspection and self-doubt. That is why they are great. That is why you will find modesty and humility the characteristics of such men.

Maybe certain aspects of what I was doing were reacting against what was happening or what people said, too. That's something that happens when you're starting out. After some time goes by and you get a little perspective, you realize that you don't need to react. You can just carry on with what you're doing. That took me a long time figure out; I've only gotten to that point in the last five or 10 years.

Maturity involves being honest and true to oneself, making decisions based on a conscious internal process, assuming responsibility for one's decisions, having healthy relationships with others and developing one's own true gifts. It involves thinking about one's environment and deciding what one will and won't accept.

I don't trust anyone who hasn't been self-destructiv e in some way, and who hasn't gone through some sort of bout of self-loathing. You've got to bang yourself around a bit to know yourself.

I felt, you know, body and soul, as it were. But, of course, I mean, I - at that age, I didn't think in terms of being professional. I didn't know anything about it. That happened later.

You actually do confront your dark side, your impulses, or your feelings of sibling rivalry in Cinderella or whatever. You admit that they exist and then you work through them and conquer them and come out living happily ever after having learned something. That's one reason why the fairy tales keep having traction and meaning.

When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.