Nikolai Gogol Quotes

I was a blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am - what shall I say I am today?

For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won't understand why or how.

When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something.

I realize what a strange in-between place I am in. The Young Woman inside has turned to go, but the Old Woman has not shown up.

It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.

My 20s were a time where I made it; my 30s were when I was away, confused, and trying to figure it all out.

Getting to a place of comfort can be uncomfortable.

I kind of see myself as a cartoon that's on its way to becoming a real person that has to find that special amulet or mushroom to get to that next realm or level. I don't feel like anything is that tangible. It freaks me out, why I feel unhappy or conflicted and why that can change on a dime.

You have to lose yourself to find yourself.

We're a nation in search of an identity, but it's quite exciting. I don't regard it as a problem. It's a challenge.

I never felt like I had anything really figured out. When I was a teenager, it was all about teenagers having an 'identity crisis.' That was the phrase that was used. But in my early 20s, I was still like, 'When am I going to be over that?'

I think in the experience of growing up and realizing who you are, what your place in the world is can be quite scary.

Nothing ever stays the same for very long in my life.

If chaos is a necessary step in the organization of one's universe, then I was well on my way.

I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then

First I was 'angry,' then 'spiritual.' Now I don't know what I am.

I'm an amalgamation of what I've needed to be. Part scholar, part rebel, part nobleman, part Mistborn, and part soldier. Sometimes I don't even know myself. I had a devil of a time getting all those pieces to work together. And, just when I'm starting to get it figured out, the world up and ends on me.

Every fellow is really two men -- what he is and what he might be; and you're never absolutely sure which you're going to bury till he's dead.

Having tried to give pattern to the chaos which lives within the pattern of your certainties, I must come out, I must emerge.

There's still such chaos in me. Still so little firmly outlined. Just like my face: a formless mass that only takes on shape through the expression of the moment. The searching for our selves is the most agonizing

and I circle ten thousand years long; And I still don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm, or an unfinished song

She left me then, surrounded by my extravagantly simple finery and I sat for a long time, uncomfortable both with the person I had been and the person I was finally becoming. Caught between the two of them, I felt rather lonely, as one often does with a new acquaintance.

I've never been in another kind of midlife crisis. I don't know what it feels like when you're through that, but I definitely feel that changing a few things, like being on a different label and having things kind of settle back into a sense of normality, helps to feel grounded.

Change is a funny thing. We never are quite sure what we are becoming or even why. Then one day we look at ourselves and wonder who we are and how we got that way. Only one thing about change remains constant...it is always painful

Who ARE You?" This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.