James Lee Burke Quotes

I'd reached a point where there was a direct conflict between what I was trying to be and who I really was.

When did I stop being me?

When I was a model, I started with an opinion, but was encouraged to lose it. It began as play-acting, but then I lost sight of myself a bit: so when I did the audition for 'Popworld' and they asked my opinion, I felt like crying with happiness.

You can't betray yourself too often, or you become somebody else.

I don't know what I am. And it's not important.

Often we lose our identity trying to please or placate others.

This is what I would say to my pupil: 'You have become only your fame and left behind most of who you were. How are you going to deal with that? Will you lose that person forever? Have you become someone else without really knowing it? Do you always have to stay in character for people to like you? Do you know that you are in character?'.

It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do.

If you realize what the real problem is-losing yourself-you realize that this itself is the ultimate trial.

It sometimes happens and will sometimes happen again that I forget who I am and strut before my eyes, like a stranger.

As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.

On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again

I felt like I was literally losing myself as being the joyful, spiritual, passionate, exciting woman that I naturally had been.

I don't know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don't want to be her anymore.

She had for so many years been trying to be like other people, that she was now like nothing in heaven or earth.

He had come so far from himself that I don't think he knew who he was anymore.

You can do terrible things when you don't know who you are.

I'm not much like myself any more.

Even when I look straight into the milky blue eyes I can't find myself any more. When did I stop being me?

I am still a person with a sense of superficiality that I'm trying to challenge.

So many people go through life, and they never deal with their own issues, no matter what the issues are - ours happen to be gender identity. But, how many people go through life and just waste an entire life 'cause they'd never deal with themselves to be who they are.

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?

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.

I look back at old photographs and videotapes, and I go, Who was I trying to be? Who was I doing this for?

In my early 30s, I started to realise I was avoiding something on a personal level, but also as a writer. I was in denial about who I was, and was trying to be someone who I was not.