Tommy Kirk Quotes

I consider myself straight, but if I met a guy tomorrow and fell in love with him, would I be brave enough to accept that without having to change the way I look at myself?

One day I actually took the list into the bathroom and I put it up against my face and looked in the mirror and I realized I had one of two choices, change the list or change myself.

For some, the fear of coming out is so great, they can continue to live an inauthentic life. But at a certain point, the pain becomes too much to bear. For me, having one more day pass by where I wasn't living my true self seemed like such a wasted opportunity, such a wasted life.

I always knew who I was, and I always ran from my true purpose... I know what my job is. And I always ran from it.

There are times when you don't know yourself. There are times when you don't want to know yourself. There are times when you want to be what you have never allowed yourself to be before.

By the time you are 30 you are still trying to make your 15-year-old self happy but you are a different person. You need to be brave and let go of that.

So many people go through life, and they never deal with their own issues, no matter what the issues are - ours happen to be gender identity. But, how many people go through life and just waste an entire life 'cause they'd never deal with themselves to be who they are.

I think that is a universal adolescent feeling, trying to find your place. The adolescent who is perfectly adjusted to his environment, I've yet to meet.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

There was a period when I had a hard time reconciling all the different parts of me in a way that I thought would make sense to others.

I was fine being in the closet at the beginning of my career because that's what you were supposed to be - until I realized that it didn't serve anybody, and I was left feeling utterly empty. This is who I am, so I've gotta be me.

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'd reached a point where there was a direct conflict between what I was trying to be and who I really was.

In my early 30s, I started to realise I was avoiding something on a personal level, but also as a writer. I was in denial about who I was, and was trying to be someone who I was not.

I would say that playing this character has caused me to think about a lot of things. He's always questioning himself and trying to get back to something he lost touch with and trying to find forgiveness. Everybody struggles with these things to some extent in their life.

Adolescence represents an inner emotional upheaval, a struggle between the eternal human wish to cling to the past and the equally powerful wish to get on with the future.

Coming out was painful, but life got so much better for me.

It's an interesting thing when you discover something about yourself. To go: 'Wow, I'm not the person I thought I was. I'm in the middle of something and I can't actually deal with it.'

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

I have struggled with identity all my life. It's not like something that just happened last week.

We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.

I think if I had seen more people like me who are out and proud, it wouldn't have taken me 45 years to say it - to walk in the truth.

I'm on the path to being someone I'm equally terrified by and obsessed with. My true self.

I think that most of us can identify with the change that happens to Bruce Banner. We all have a little of both inside us. I think this is an important theme in defining the character.

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.