Caroline Knapp Quotes

I'm not good at watching myself.

As successful as it may appear I am, I don't really feel that. It's like, you know you've achieved some level of success, and you know what you've done, and yet you still feel you have more to do and more to prove.

I don't want to sound self-righteous, and I don't want to act like I have it all put together.

A lot of what keeps me going is wanting to be better, thinking I'm not good enough.

I found after seventy years that I was not a lunatic but a moron.... I should have been able to do better.

There are just times when it seems you can't do anything wrong. Then there are other times when whatever you do is wrong. I think I could have had more drive. I was never very ambitious.

Gaze Upward, Look Inward, Reach Outward, Press Forward.

I was very driven, very focused, very ambitious. I mean, when I look back on myself in my 20s, part of me just cringes.

Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, 'scientific' though. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.

I am so secure in who I am. I really am! And I'm not conceited. I just think, 'Wow, okay, that's the life you want to live.' It wasn't about who he chose. I mean, I had moments, 'Am I not sexy enough? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not smart enough?' But in so many of those questions, I immediately stopped and said, 'No, don't start doing that.' Because you can get stuck in that cycle and you can carry on to other things.

Only a man who cannot conquer his deficiencies feels the need to convince the world that he has none.

Sometimes, I think there's a lack of ambition in me. But then sometimes, I think, no, you can, like William Blake said, you know, see heaven in a grain of sand. If you look really, really closely at a situation, you can find almost endless interest in it.

My sense of insecurity keeps me alert, always ready to correct my errors.

I don't know. Haven't I always been mature?

I'm the type of person who is always going to be somewhat dissatisfied with myself. I'm never going to be smart enough. I'm never going to be a good enough father and husband. I'm never going to be a good enough actor for myself. I just never will be, and I have to get comfortable with waking up every day and trying to move some little increment closer to the person I have always dreamed of being. This is the journey.

By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn't doing it.

I'm very self-aware.

There's no doubt that probably at least once a week, maybe once a day, I said, "Ah, I should have done that better."

Anyone is to be pitied who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.

Failure comes from ego, greed, envy, fear, imitation. I have success not because I am smart, but because I am rational.

I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.

What else is there for me to conquer? Hopefully my ego.

Tell me, is it possible to love someone who is not as smart as you are? ...But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? ...Why is that? Because we want to know things, how the pieces fit. Talkers seduce, words direct us into corners. We want more than anything to grow and change. Brave new world.

The heart of every man lies open to the shafts of correction if the archer can take proper aim.

I have a lot of growing up to do. But I think, 'Hell, is it too late?'