James Ellroy Quotes

A [wo]man who is unconscious of [her/]himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

I am a very honest person, and I can only say there are moments in my life where I really did think I was being me in the sense of my morals and beliefs and the way I acted. But when I look back at certain things that I wore and my hair and make-up, I was like, 'Whoa! That wasn't me!' But I didn't know it back then.

I look at that person and I'm like, That's not Kelli White. That's not who I am, who I started out to be.

The woman who made those movies, that's not me. She's someone else.

And the idea of ourselves is our escape from the fact what we really are.

I can't see my reflection in the waters, I can't speak the sounds that show no pain. I can't hear the echo of my footsteps, or can't remember the sound of my own name.

The world's most sensible person and the biggest idiot both stay within us. The worst part is, you can't even tell who is who.

I turned myself to face me, but I've never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker.

It is a fact that you project what you are.

Once I looked into a mirror at my face I felt like it was completely convincing. I was Salieri.

If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.

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.'

You're looking at a different me than I'm looking at.

I could easily not be the person that people know.

I think the whole idea of me was that I wasn't going to be but that I wanted to be, desperately.

Nothing is stranger to man than his own image.

There are times I can't even figure myself out.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

People aren't interested in seeing themselves as they really are.

Nobody really knows what they look like. The mirror shows you only what you want to see.

I don't even know what my voice is to this day.

When I look at myself, I see a person who strangely lacks what I consider the ingredients of a personality.

If you start trying to figure out yourself from the image everyone has of you, you run into a dead end.

I've always been fascinated by this idea of who we are versus who we want to be.