Heidi Julavits Quotes

Man, I have had so much plastic surgery, I don't even recognize myself, sometimes. If I catch a glimpse in a window or something, I think it is someone else.

As soon as you 'Botox' your smile lines away, you lose part of your identity.

I'm a bit frightened of the idea of a full facelift because, when you look in the mirror, you want to look like yourself.

I looked into the mirror and saw this middle-aged woman who keeps invading my face.

I’ve often been told that I’m a bit strange. I hear that pretty regularly, but it is not how I see myself. I feel like I’m extremely normal. I do have a bizarre face that’s a bit out of proportion. I guess that’s why some people see me as strange.

I think people make their own faces, as they grow.

Everyone tells me that I have a very sweet face! I'd like to change that. I wish I had a more flexible face!

You watch yourself age and it's hard to feel like a sex symbol.

Past middle age, some friends suggested that I should have my eyebags removed, the deepening creases on my face stretched. I often examined my face in the mirror, imagining how I'd look if I followed the suggestion. I decided to retain the old mug. I was too familiar and comfortable with it. And the final hindrance: the cost.

I like my old nose. If I could get it out the cupboard and put it on, then I would.

The image of my face I hold in my mind is always about 10 years out of date.

I attempted various types of plastic surgery, minutely but enough to stave off this encroaching middle-aged body. And every time I did, something went wrong. I felt misshapen, just not natural any more.

You get to be a certain age - I am 58 - and it becomes tricky not to become a caricature of yourself.

I'm pretty fortunate that my beard - if I shave it off, I look like a completely different person. My face, it transforms. I mean, I have a weird face! My eyes are really deep and sunken. My son tells me, 'You don't have any eyebrows.'

Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.

We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.

I've only ever been mistaken for myself. People draw a lot of comparisons to all of the round-faced, mustached men of entertainment that make me cringe and sick to my stomach about how the world really sees me and they're right.

If you go too far down the rabbit hole of what people think about you, it can change everything about who you are.

I think what people see in me is one slice of who I am. It does permeate my life in the sense that I don't like to be told what to do, or how to be, or how I can do it. But I'm probably a lot tamer than people would expect.

If I'm not comfortable in my own skin or confident in who I am, then I'm going to pick parts based on how people are going to view them, not based on what I find challenging or entertaining.

I've got an age that I do think of myself.

The main thing you can change is how you perceive yourself. Stop looking in the mirror and realize that youre living for yourself, not other people.

We all grasp on to a single idea of ourselves, the way aging people dye their hair. It’s no matter that this dye doesn’t fool you. My lady, you don’t dye your hair to decieve other people, or to fool yourself, but rather to cheat your image in your mirror a little.

I don't have all that great an awareness of how people see me in life. I don't find myself thinking about it a lot.

Maybe that's why people take pictures of themselves, to avoid being described.