Anatole Broyard Quotes

There are always two forces warring against each other within us.

Everyone has a conflict inside of them - the conflict between what you should do and what you want to do.

I've always been at war with myself, for right or wrong.

Just because I don't do bad things doesn't mean I don't have bad thoughts.

I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man.

The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.

I agree with myself on 80 percent of things, but when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning, I still have inner debates about the right thing to do.

The bigger confrontation is the one an individual has with itself.

For an author, the nice characters aren't much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They're doing it for themselves.

The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!

I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me.

I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.

Your best friend and worst enemy are both in this room right now. It's not your neighbor right or left - and it's not God or the devil - it's you.

I don't even agree with myself at times.

As we wrestle with questions of identity, we imitate those actions we think best fill an ambiguity we have within ourselves. And that goes for everyone; no one is free from this condition.

As usual, my mind is spinning in circles...is it me? Am I making mountains out of molehills? Being too analytical? Worrying about nothing? Being emotional?

A man may quarrel with himself alone; that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation.

A changeableness, too, as if beneath my visible face there was another, having second thoughts.

God defend me from myself.

I've always been strong-minded, but I wonder.

I am not overconfident.

I really wanted to be nasty and mean and bad. It's so much easier than being the good girl.

Like anybody, you have moments when you question yourself and you're insecure.

When I read profiles of myself, I sometimes think: 'I have spent my whole life struggling to understand my motivations and impulses, and I've never quite sorted them out.'