Elizabeth Hardwick Quotes

Many people believe letters the most personal and revealing form of communication. In them, we expect to find the charmer at his nap, slumped, open-mouthed, profoundly himself without thought for appearances. Yet, this is not quite true. Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose. In conversation, those uneasy eyes upon you, those lips ready with an emendation before you have begun to speak, are a powerful deterrent to unreality, even to hope.

To me, letters have always been a robust medium of sublimation. I don't remember what I was like before I learned my ABC's, but for as long as I can remember I have made them with my fingers and felt them in my bones.

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

Do whatever it takes to convey your essential self.

You've gotta share what's going on in your mind.

You could take away the singing, and I am fine. But don't take away my gift of writing. It is the best way I can relate and express what I am feeling and what I am going through.

Through style, you can communicate to the world who you are and what you stand for.

When I have a lot of emotion going on, I'll write. I write letters to my family, my boyfriend, anyone I'm trying to get my point across to. It's easier for me to express myself.

I've got no qualms in making my feelings clear when I need to.

I became a writer out of the desire to express myself.

I'm an expressive person.

I find myself consistently drawn to writing about intimacy and the way we construct one another.

I have a hard time expressing myself when I'm emotional, so my family has done this forever. We write each other letters if we're fighting or whatever. And my dad's a writer, but we write each other letters because we feel that it's easier to get out what you're truly saying if you write it down.

I like men who straightforwardly express their emotions.

I've never had trouble talking and expressing my feelings.

I can speak at length and use my brain. It's nice to be able to show that side of me.

Playing drums is how I communicate. It's how I speak to people. That's my God-given gift.

It's harder to say 'no' when you really mean it.

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.

To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.

A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want.

The main thing is to be myself. What I mean by that is, to be honest when called upon to express your feelings. The other thing is - maybe this should come first - to be a good listener. To close your mouth and to listen, and to be able to echo back what your partner says to you.

The theater let me dramatize inner struggles, the push-pull between the inner life and the world, the various selves I presented according to what each world required. And it let me use my body.

With no reason to hide these words I feel, and no reason to talk about the books I read, but still, I do.

It is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings – much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.