E. L. Konigsburg Quotes

I was always a class clown, so I never had trouble fitting in; I just had trouble finding out where I really wanted to be.

Growing up, I just wanted to be like everyone else. I didn't value or understand the beauty in being different at the time in my life.

Like so many kids, I just wanted to fit in, and I see now that I spent most of my life trying to be what I wasn't, trying to get people to like me.

We're all just trying to fit in and find ourselves, particularly when we're growing up.

I always tried so hard to fit in, and then I figured out that I didn't want to fit.

I just want to be like other people that are normal.

For me, the teen years were all about searching for a place for myself, wondering why I seemed so different than everyone else, wondering especially why no one could look past the surface and figure out who I really was underneath.

As teenagers, we go through social, emotional and physical changes... and sometimes, to feel comfortable, we end up doing things that are not true to who we are just to fit in and feel loved.

You don't realise how cool your culture is until you get out of that phase of trying to fit in.

If you're already somebody who's feeling different, you'll do everything in your power to fix it because children will do everything in their power to fit in and assimilate.

The conformist understands that the reason of his desperate look for conformism is that he realises he is different and that he never accepted his difference.

When I first got into the league, I tried to fit in. Now I don't care.

Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one's own personality.

We all want to be special, to stand out; there's nothing wrong with this. The irony is that every human being is special to start with, because we're unique to start with. But we then go through some sort of boot camp from the age of zero to about 18 where we learn everything we can about how not to be unique.

Fitting in is boring. But it takes you nearly your whole life to work that out.

Everybody is different; as long as you look like you belong and you can fit in, the world is you oyster now.

We're accepted as long as we conform to what we are expected to be, and I'm sure that's not any different for anyone else.

Joining a sub-culture, any sub-culture, for whatever reason, is as I see it never a legitimate self-expression. It is always a result of sheep mentality; a wish to belong somewhere.

A lot of people come up to me all the time and say thank you for helping me be who I am. So my thing wasn't just about sexuality. It was about anyone who felt different; anyone who felt out of place. Being gay was one part of it.

I grew up in a small town where everyone wanted to be the same or look the same and was afraid to be different.

Like most people, I have painful memories of trying to fit in as a child. I wore, said, and did pretty much what everyone else did.

Popular kids don't necessarily know who they are because they're so busy trying to conform. It's the outcasts who are more attuned to who they are. They're more self-aware, more real.

I fell through a crack for years. Historically, I am a nothing because I fit in no category. I can only be me.

I want young people to know that they can belong - whatever your culture, your religion, your sexuality - that you can live life how you want to live it and feel comfortable how you are.

The challenge is how strange and different my voice sounds, so I have tried to sound like other people and tried to be something I wasn't. I have tried to be a soul singer because someone else thought that a good idea. Not because I did.