Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

I'd like people to understand that I do have some personality.

Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.

Seeing that I am so busily occupied with myself just now, I want to try to paint my self-portrait in writing.

It is difficult to know oneself, but it isn't easy to paint oneself either.

I wouldn't be myself if I weren't always trying to be someone else. I only have so much time on this earth and I want to be as many people as possible.

I don't know whether I am different from other people. Perhaps I am. Perhaps no one has a personality, and people are inventing themselves in the context in which they find themselves.

The question isn't, 'What do we want to know about people?', It's, 'What do people want to tell about themselves?'

It's lame to say that I'm a normal girl, but I think I am.

Identity in the form of continuity of personality is an extremely important characteristic of the individual.

I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am 'known for' is what I am.

It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.

When I think of myself, I'm definitely... I'm not like a comedian.

Yeah, it's nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.

I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don't hurt me, because it is me. If it was not me, if I was pretending to be someone else, then this could unbalance my world, but I know who I am.

I'm nobody, who are you?

Everybody has their own story - it's who you are. If I wasn't five-foot, I wouldn't be who I am!

I am not sultry. I don't know what I am.

I did get a reputation for being choosy and not very easy to be approached, and none of that is true. It is not that I am not approachable, it is just that I am trying to find myself and establish who I am as an artist.

That is just a part of my personality, being the voice of reasoning, and it is kind of annoying being that person all the time, but pretty much what you see on 'Total Divas' is who we are as individuals.

I've been working on the way my originality, my body, my face, my original form is perceived by me.

'Shortcomings' was me figuring out who I am.

I'm a human before I'm even a rapper.

Ronald Reagan was the best Ronald Reagan ever, and Ronald Reagan was a cool guy. You're not Ronald Reagan. You can't run as him; you can't relive his career. You can't just have somebody else's career. You have to be you.

You can spend time self-identifying and figuring out what you are on that, but at some point, you just want to be who you are and not walk around telling people.