Mary Webb Quotes

I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.

I had been in a place where I was letting too many people dictate who I should be and what I should be, and I was trying to make everybody happy to the point where it was just killing me. I'd completely lost myself. It's kind of funny now that people think I've completely changed myself for Marilyn Manson, when this is actually the first time in my life that I took a stand and said, "This is who I am and this is who I've always wanted to be, and I'm finally with somebody who lets me be who I want to be."

The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves.

A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people’s evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction.

I don't know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don't want to be her anymore.

I believe so many people live what I call that false identity they are living according to other people's expectations, associations, their experiences, the labels in life. And they buy into that.

We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.

I don't know who I am. But I do know who I'm not. I have occasionally tried playing people I'm definitely not, and that wasn't a very pleasant experience.

I am a very honest person, and I can only say there are moments in my life where I really did think I was being me in the sense of my morals and beliefs and the way I acted. But when I look back at certain things that I wore and my hair and make-up, I was like, 'Whoa! That wasn't me!' But I didn't know it back then.

I'd reached a point where there was a direct conflict between what I was trying to be and who I really was.

In my early 30s, I started to realise I was avoiding something on a personal level, but also as a writer. I was in denial about who I was, and was trying to be someone who I was not.

We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.

Everyone kept telling me, Just be yourself. Be yourself. I kept thinking, there's got to be more to it than that!

I always knew who I was, but everyone else wanted to me to be their 'idea' of the 'right' artist. At times, I even believed them.

I never quite became the monster I wanted to be. I feel mostly monstrous as I more become myself. Because the more you become yourself, the more it disturbs other people.

In life, we are told to do or be so many different things and expected to fit so many different expectations; I think that's something I always had a hard time with.

You can spend time self-identifying and figuring out what you are on that, but at some point, you just want to be who you are and not walk around telling people.

They tell me what to wear, how to look, what I should say, how I should be. Until recently I had given into that pressure, I lost sight of who I was. I listened to opinions of people and I tried to change who I am because I thought others would accept me for it. And I realized I don't know how to be anything but myself.

I'm so many people. They shock me sometimes. I wish I was just me! I used to think I was going crazy, until I discovered that some people I admired were like that to.

We are so ruled by what people tell us we must be that we have forgotten who we are.

Trapped. Sinking. Can't be myself. Made into what other people expect. Is that everyone's fate? Were the great individualists the products of their friends who wanted a great individualist as a friend?

The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself.

I had a moment a few years ago where I wasn't sure if I was acting for myself or because people expected it of me. A bit of a crisis of faith, I suppose. I did some soul-searching, took a break and decided I was going to live my life only for me.

Anybody who told you to be yourself simply couldn't have given you worse advice.

You can't go around being what everyone wants you to be, living your life through other people's rules, and expect to be happy and have inner peace.