Geoff Dyer Quotes

I try not to listen to the shoulds or coulds, and try to get beyond expectations, peer pressure, or trying to please - and just listen. I believe all the answers are ultimately within us.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

Individuals have to decide what is true and real for them.

My experience is that the universal is the personal. If you can get past your navel-gazing into the deepest part of yourself as a writer, you find everyone - we're all there.

I've read a lot of different versions of myself - and all of them are true because it's all opinion, and they're as accurate as it can ever be. But I don't think that I've been deft at hiding parts of my personality.

Authenticity is the ability to listen to what nature tells us. Listening isn't the same thing as never making a mistake, but the important thing is to learn.

The best way to find out whether you're on the right path? Stop looking at the path.

This book is pointing the way into it for people that see it as daunting or a mystery. Some people just do it, but others need help with the mindset, permission almost to listen to themselves. Understanding how things work is the key.

That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.

When people show you who they are, believe them. I carry that with me a lot. It has served me well.

I think you find universal truth when you get really honest with yourself and you can reach people. If you go deep enough, you have that core feeling, and that feeling can transcend the details of your experience.

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.

You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it.

You can know what's in your life when you know what's in your heart.

Sometimes I was so busy being tuned in to outside ideas, expectations, and demands, I failed to hear the unique music in my soul. I forfeited my ability to listen creatively to my deepest self, to my own God within.

I never judge my own songwriting. It's just my heart. What's there to judge about your own heart?

I can hold space for people who think I'm a nut job. It's cool. But I know from my own experience what I experienced. I know what I learned. I know what I saw. I know what I heard.

It's common for people to start questioning themselves. As a female, I'm going to offer the advice I gave myself: You look at your strengths, you look at your goals, and accept that you are who you are. Be true to that.

People are full of great advice... Professors, parents, friends mean well... But in the end, the person driving this thing called life is you. Listen to you. Spend time being alone. Learn your worth. Dream. And never forget where you came from.

You can't think about what other people think. You just can't. It's stupid. You've got to look inside yourself.

I know what works for me.

I really think it's important that you not listen to so many fads; you really need to find what works for you.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men that is genius.

We all have within us a deep sense of what we need, and what is right and true for us. To access this we need to pay attention to our feelings and our intuition. We need to learn to listen deeply to ourselves and to trust what we hear. And we need to risk acting on what we feel to be true. Even if we make mistakes, we must do this in order to learn and grow.

You just listen to your own heart. That is your only teacher.