Hubert Selby Jr. Quotes

I often feel that when people have affairs, it has more to do with something they're searching for in themselves than anything else.

Beauty—or the desire to be beautiful—is in itself a dangerous motivation. Someone (I forgot who) once said, ‘Does the person who loves someone for their beauty really love them?’ So don’t focus on beauty ... a respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul. It is the sum of our experiences that makes us interesting, and having been through a time in your life in which you were in a bad place (or what you perceived as a bad place) physically, can be useful. It can even be necessary.

But looking beautiful isn't, I think, as important as feeling beautiful.

Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.

Satisfied needs do not motivate. It's only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival - to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.

Humans are not machines-we are something more. We have feeling and experience. Material comforts are not sufficient to satisfy us. We need something deeper-human affection.

The Beauty raised her eyes, the only part of her that was truly beautiful.

The poet's pen is the true divining rod Which trembles towards the inner founts of feeling; Bringing to light and use, else hid from all, The many sweet clear sources which we have of good and beauty in our own deep bosoms; And marks the variations of all mind As does the needle.

I have a ridiculously beautiful wife who's super sexy, and as long as she's happy with me, I don't need to look in the mirror and think, "How do I stack up next to Bradley Cooper? Would Cooper rock this shirt?" Doesn't matter. He does not have your wife. You do.

I remember working on a show, and feeling so insecure about whether I looked attractive enough to do a love scene. It was weird because I couldn't understand why I wasn't feeling beautiful, even though I knew I was.

Beauty matters. It is not just a subjective thing but a universal need of human beings. If we ignore this need we find ourselves in a spiritual desert.

The perpetual hunger to be beautiful and that thirst to be loved which is the real curse of Eve.

I didn't need more fame or money. I needed more heart.

Quite the ugliest face I ever saw was that of a woman whom the world called beautiful. Through its silver veil the evil and ungentle passions looked out, hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces which the multitude, at first glance, pronounce homely, unattractive and such as "Nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill. Not for the world would I have one feature changed; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories, and are beautiful through their associations.

artists ... all have a need that cannot be met by another human being.

Feeling beautiful has nothing to do with what you look like. I promise.

Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech.

Emotion is always new and the word has always served; therein lies the difficulty of expressing emotion.

Can the plural possessive express the feelings in your heart? If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!

I think beauty is a feeling that you get after you've had an experience. It's the way you feel about it that is beautiful.

There's no way for them to take away my sadness, but they can make sure I am not empty of all the other feelings.

If you don't accept yourself, you won't live fully, and if you don't live fully you'll need to get full some other way.

Being beautiful can never hurt, but you have to have more. You have to sparkle, you have to be fun, you have to make your brain work if you have one.

A look which reveals inward stress adds more beauty to the face, no matter how much tragedy and pain it bespeaks; but the face which, in silence, does not announce hidden mysteries is not beautiful, regardless of the symmetry of its features.