Joan Didion Quotes

I'm always trying to prove myself to the rest of the world.

self-esteem, n. An erroneous appraisal.

It's very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don't dig you.

Mirabelle is not affected by a man’s failures to approach her, as her own self-depreciating attitude never allows the idea that he would in the first place.

Self-esteem is not based on itself.

You can be loved by your family, your mate, and your friends yet not love yourself. You can be admired by your associates yet regard yourself as worthless. You can project an image of assurance and poise that fools almost everyone yet secretly tremble with a sense of inadequacy. You can fulfill the expectations of others yet fail your own. You can win every honor yet feel that you have accomplished nothing. What shall it profit a person to gain the esteem of the whole world yet lose his or her own?

I have a lot of confidence, but little Self-Esteem. This has given me a tremendous creative spark because it forced me to keep proving myself.

That's the biggest thing to separate - your body from your self worth.

Self worth cannot be verfied by others

Whether at work, at home or in public, we have been trained to believe that who we are at the core of our being is often unacceptable. As a result, we work diligently to live up to - and sometimes down to - what others have made us out to be, whether or not it is an accurate reflection of who we are.

My mother always taught me, even my dad, just never let other people's opinions of you shape your opinion of yourself. And I never have and I never will.

The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.

I don't really care what other people see me as. I seriously don't. I've always worried about what my opinion of myself is. And I've always thought that it carries most weight. So I don't care what other people's opinion of me is or how they view whatever I've said or done.

Very early on, you figure out that you put your self-esteem in the hands of strangers. There's a different commodity. There's the Helena Bonham Carter that everyone thinks they know, who really has nothing to do with me. But you just have to let that go.

I know that when I attached my sense of identity a little too closely to my work that I might be distracting myself from feelings of unworthiness. It wasn't the number of hours I worked or how bloodshot my eyes were that defined the difference. It was something internal.

I always wanted to be more validated as a human being, as a person, than I was as a player. I think that was a really hard balance for me.

Too great a sense of identity makes a man feel he can do no wrong. And too little does the same.

Don't be too concerned about what others think of you. It's what you think about yourself that matters!

The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.

He who despises himself esteems himself as a self-despiser.

Total, unconditional acceptance of yourself is the first step in building a positive self-image.

The only thing that keeps you from deserving, or loving yourself, or whatever, is someone else's belief or opinion that you have accepted as truth.

My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions of people who hate you for what you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks.

If I were to search for the central core of difficulty in people as I have come to know them, it is that in the great majority of cases they despise themselves, regarding themselves as worthless and unlovable.

To me the thought of oneself as low and humble is a sin and ignorance.