Jodi Picoult Quotes

Be your self! All you are now doing, thinking, desiring, is not you yourself.

Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image

To be authentic is to stop pretending to be what think you are, because you are not.

I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately. All I have to do is think of me and I have peace of mind. I'm tired of looking 'round rooms wondering what I've got to do or who I'm supposed to be. I don't want to be anything other than me.

I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll be a great actress.

What we must try to be, of course, is ourselves and wholeheartedly. We must find out what we really are and what we really want.

I never really did abandon my true self. It's not like I invented this imaginary person and started to be her.

I wanted to become me, totally me. The more me, the better. I instinctively knew this and I was right.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

I'm trying to know who I am and be honest about it.

Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.

I just want to be who I am. I think all women go through the belief that they need to be superwoman - that to be successful in any way, and I don't necessarily mean in business or anything, but just to be a successful person, you have to be superwoman.

The world wants us to be who we truly are, not who we think others want us to be.

I think that you can only be true to yourself. Nobody can live up to other people's expectations. You will always let them down. There will always be something they won't like about you.

What does it mean to be yourself?” he asked. “If it means to do what you think you ought to do, then you’re doing that already. If it means to act like you’re exempt from society’s influence, that’s the worst advice in the world; you would probably stop bathing and wearing clothes. The advice to ‘be yourself’ is obviously nonsense. But our brains accept this tripe as wisdom because it is more comfortable to believe we have a strategy for life than to believe we have no idea how to behave.

It's always important to be yourself.

Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.

I'm not super conservative, and I have no problem with people being risque or owning your sexuality or even putting it out there. I have a problem when it's all you are because you're not being fair to yourself; you have more depth than this.

I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.

Being myself didn't work. Being someone else didn't work. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have friends.

I hope someday you see this is all life wants: for you to be your own kind of beautiful & not the kind that makes you forget who you are.

Did I express my personality? I think that's quite unimportant because it's not people's selves but what they have to say about life that's important.

Always try to be yourself.

I've learned that it's harder to try to put on this goody two-shoes persona when that's not me.