Mark Strand Quotes

Most of what we say about ourselves is a wonderful piece of storytelling.

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing

I want to portray myself as myself.

When writing about oneself, one must strive to be truthful. Truth is more important than modesty.

You have to be honest about who you are.

People hear that and say I'm being modest, but I am not a modest person, but I have to be truthful about what I'm doing and what I'm doing is channeling.

Anything I've ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

Really, as a writer, I believe that if you're going to write about your own life, you need to do it as honestly and candidly as you are capable.

Balthazar Balsan is not a self-portrait. If he was, I'd have made the character more flattering.

I've always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

I find that I don't lie about the big things in life. The things that matter. And about me. While I'm talking about myself, I rarely lie: I know who I am, my level of talent, that I'm not the most versatile filmmaker, the person I am. I don't lie about myself because I don't lie to myself.

I can deal with imperfection, but I can't deal with people who lie to themselves and lie to the world to make the world feel better.

It's hard to accept the truth, especially about yourself.

At the end of the day, I represent myself first and foremost, and I'm not going to ever purposely try and misrepresent myself.

The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.

If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

The best lies about me are the ones I told.

Man is bound to lie about himself

I am expressing myself truthfully. That is an important thing.

I just don't think that I could be the kind of actor I want to be and not be honest with myself. Honesty is very important to me as an actor and as a person. I didn't even think about it.

You can fool people. You can fool anybody anytime of the day, but you can't fool yourself. At night, when you go home, you've got to be straight up with you.

You've got to be who you are. You've got to be honest with people. If your views change on something, you've got to be willing to express it.

I think that's the most important thing you can do to be a real person - is to be honest with yourself.

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

I always write what feels really true and honest and me.