Lily King Quotes

Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interests people more than people, even if only one's own person.

I used to be too subjective, and I was always tempted to find my inner self in the exterior and dissipate my imagination on other people and on life.

When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.

Uncertainty is a very good thing: it's the beginning of an investigation, and the investigation should never end.

What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.

I find myself a fascinating subject.

We can't give the truth to someone as an object, we can only point to it, inviting inspection. It is in that spirit that we can hear or read a teaching and then look at our own lives, at our own experiences to see whether anything might have been revealed about them.

The biggest research of all when I do a character is self-examination. You look at yourself and you ask, 'How am I similar to this person and how am I different?'

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.

I start asking a lot of questions about my own life, and it's not necessarily fun, but it's a good exercise.

I think I do overshare. It's my way of trying to understand myself.

I'm a very introspective individual.

Writing on 'Love' is so steeped in self-analysis. The writer's room can feel like therapy.

There are moments when the inner life actually 'pays,' when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.

The exploration of oneself is usually also an exploration of the world at large, of other writers, a process of comparison with oneself with others, discoveries of kinships, gradual illumination of one's own potentialities.

The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.

Self knowledge is always bad news.

An uncomfortable feeling is not an enemy. It's a gift that says, "Get honest; inquire." We reach out for alcohol, or television, or credit cards, so we can focus out there and not have to look at the feeling. And that's as it should be, because in our innocence we haven't known how. So now what we can do is reach out for a paper and a pencil, write thought down, and investigate.

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.--What was that god thinking who counseled, "Know thyself!" Did he perhaps mean,"Cease to concern yourself! Become objective!"--And Socrates?--And "scientific men"?

It is curious how an age of public self-revelation, and of the use of psychological jargon, should also be an age when self-examination is rarely practised.

I like that: a little pressure on the understood boundaries of yourself. Sounded like something out of a self-awareness class, probably with yoga. See what kind of a pretzel you can tie yourself into and press on the understood... I was raving, if only to myself.

One always, sooner or later, comes upon a city which is an image of one's inner cities. Fez is an image of my inner self. ... The layers of the city of Fez are like the layers and secrecies of the inner life. One needs a guide. ... There were in Fez, as in my life, streets which led nowhere, impasses which remained a mystery.

If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water.

I believe in the importance of seeking self-knowledge. The more I know myself, the more I feel empowered.