Burl Ives Quotes

A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?

The coral that grows at the edge of the reef is always the strongest and most colourful because it faces the greatest battering. It's the same if you're called Honeysuckle. I'd have had a totally different life if I'd been called Mary.

I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.

We all have negative days, but that doesn't mean we are pessimistic. We all do stupid things, but that doesn't mean we are stupid. It's important to be able to distinguish between what happens to us and who we are, and look forward with hope for new and better days ahead!

I wouldn't want to forget anything, even the weird stuff and the bad stuff. It makes you who you are.

'I Am Number Four' is a great story about a guy who's trying to find his destiny and figure out who he is and his identity.

Personally speaking, growing up as a gay man before it was as socially acceptable as it is now, I knew what it was to feel different, to feel alienated and to feel not like everyone else. But the very same thing that made me monstrous to some people also empowered me and made me who I was.

Being a good actor isn't easy. Being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I'm done.

What you are comes to you.

I can't be a man. But I can embrace the head of a man, the intelligence of a man, the spirit of a man.

I want to figure out myself as a man.

It's a life of five-card draw, and you know what? When God asked me - I'm fine with the card I got. I'm gonna play this.

I think it was a possibility, I think we're all kind of delusional like that, we think that we can all carry on being who we are without bending ourselves to make ourselves acceptable and expect someone to come along and see to us and rescue to us.

I am so far more secure and more grounded and more know who I am than when I was in my 20s.

Life is a rotten lottery. I've had a pretty amazing life, a good life, and God knows I'm thankful, but I do believe that after 30, stop whining! Everybody's dealt a hand, and it's not fair what you get. But you've got to deal with it.

I would say what's really interesting about me personally is that I've taken my transgender experience, and I've looked at it on the bright side, on the positive side.

Being transgender is more than just medical books and everything, procedures. It's something spiritual in which you're finding yourself and really discovering who you are and learning to love yourself.

The truth is that when a man has a child, and it's a girl, and he doesn't change as a man, he's not much of a man.

I've always known exactly who I am, but growing up has always been a struggle. I've even been called an 'it.'

You're only given as much as you can handle at any given time. Whether it's true or not, it gives you the strength.

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

The real test of a man is not when he plays the role that he wants for himself but when he plays the role destiny has for him.

I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I’d be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.

. . . Cultivating good humor may be helpful in finding our own identity. Young people who are trying to find out who they really are often have concerns as to their ability to meet and cope with the challenges that confront them and that lie ahead. They will find that it is easier to ride over the bumps and come quickly to their own identity if they cultivate the good humor that comes naturally. It is important that we all learn to laugh at ourselves.

She was working to remind herself of who she was. She was working to remember that somewhere in another place entirely she was known and loved.