Michael Cunningham Quotes

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.

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.

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

I still haven't made a film that defines who I am.

I just don't see myself as the heroine in my own narrative.

I always wanted to be an actress. And it wasn't ego. I felt so little about myself, considered myself such a sparrow. Not just my size. I thought I was so plain... I did plays not to show off but because if I did that - I didn't realize it at the time - I would be somebody other than this person I didn't really approve of.

By the time I hit college, my secret shame was the reason I was an actor was my own words sort of dried up. I stopped writing. I stopped being able to form my own vision. That's actually what my first feature is about - looking back at two different selves.

I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.

Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins?

I'm a minor player in my own life story.

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

I've seen pictures of me, and I look mean and arrogant. That's how I felt on the inside. I think now, 'Is that really me?'

When you are born into a body that takes the image of another, you ask yourself a question much like the famous 'chicken and egg' conundrum. Do you take the form of he, or does he take the form of you?

It feels weird to say there's more to me than that, like I'm being overdramatic, and a tear rolls down my cheek. But, no - I do like I feel like there's more to me than just baseball.

That image of who I was publicly was so solidified. You're that person. And it wasn't even close to a true representation of where I was in my life.

For the last 14 years or so, I've been a fighter for so long I kind of forgot what it's like to not have this as my biggest form of expression of who I am.

Losing It Some days I think I'm losing my mind. What seems so clear most of the time becomes a big question mark. Am I really the way I percieve myself, or is the person others see the truth of me? I wait for answers, but inside I know I have to go out and find them. And answers like knowledge, are not always where we first look for them.

We are not always even what we are most.

Self-realization sounds good. But what if only an enraged dwarf emerges?

What do you know about yourself? What are your stories? The ones you tell yourself, and the ones told by others. All of us begin somewhere. Though I suppose the truth is that we begin more than once; we begin many times. Over and over, we start our own tales, compose our own stories, whether our lives are short or long. Until at last all our beginnings come down to just one end, and the tale of who we are is done.

Am I too fast, too facile? I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.

All through the night, she battled herself. Or battled to know herself. She fell apart and then put herself back together and then she fell apart again and put herself back together, over and over.

If your life were a book, and you were the author, how would you want your story to go?

I have no idea! I have been writing for 35 years and from the beginning up to now the situation's almost the same. I'm kind of an ugly duckling. Always the duckling, never the swan.

When I look at myself, I don't see the man I wanted to be.