Kathi Appelt Quotes

I think women - or human beings, for that matter - are vulnerable. It's your vulnerability that makes you beautiful and stronger in your own way. Because then you're more accepting to newer things.

I don't believe anyone is ugly.

I didn't appreciate the young woman that I was, or my young beauty, because I was so obsessed with the fact that I felt fat. It's never good to add to anybody else's suffering. It's an important topic to really get the gravity and the importance of - dealing with dignity.

Being called ugly and fat and disgusting to look at from the time I could barely understand what the words meant has scarred me so deep inside that I have learned to hunt, stalk, claim, own and defend my own loveliness.

I love the story of Quasimodo, about someone who feels like they don't belong but is pure of heart and has good intentions. It's a great message for a younger audience.

I think it frustrates me that so many people have bought into the idea of what we should look like instead of actually giving a crap about everyone around you.

I've always felt, as a person, that I wanted to make people feel included and loved because I think at some point in all of our lives, we've felt not included and unworthy, especially in terms of appearances.

Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.

We may be unlovely yet we are not unloved.

There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)

Life was tough for me. When I was a kid, nobody played with me because they thought I looked ugly with my extra thumb. It pained me. So once I thought of getting it surgically removed. But I didn't. Slowly, I realized that the exterior is not the criterion for love and success.

And so we polish our own lives, creating landscapes and canyons and peaks with the very silt we try to avoid, the dirt we disavow or hide or deny. It is the dirt of our lives—the depressions, the losses, the inequities, the failing grades in trigonometry, the e-mails sent in fear or hate or haste, the ways in which we encounter people different from us—that shape us, polish us to a heady sheen, make us in fact more beautiful, more elemental, more artful and lasting.

Kids made fun of me because I was dark skinned, had a wide nose, and was dyslexic. Even as an actor, it took me a long time to realize why words and letters got jumbled in my mind and came out differently.

Shall I tell you what you have that other men don't?.... It's the courage of your own tenderness.

When you challenge other people's ideas of who or how you should be, they may try to diminish and disgrace you. It can happen in small ways in hidden places, or in big ways on a world stage. You can spend a lifetime resenting the tests, angry about the slights and the injustices. Or, you can rise above it.

My cancer allowed me to explore who I really was. Now I feel like a woman who's able to handle whatever life has dealt her.

I speak to people who have been through so much more.

I've spent my whole life being told I have a face like a horse. You are just what you are, aren't you?

Either accept people for what they are, or don't. So, in other words, man, if people don't know me, I think they do themself an injustice. Because, as a whole, I think I'm a good person.

You can't expect everyone to love you. I'm not someone who just wants to throw out hate, just because.

Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can and surely will at times fail. Other vulnerabilities, like being embarrassed or risking love, can be terrifying, too. I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.

If you can learn to love yourself and all the flaws, you can love other people so much better. And that makes you so happy.

I think that there is something truly beautiful in everybody you meet.

Have a strong mind and a soft heart.