Carol Channing Quotes

There's nothing harder than defining oneself.

You gotta know what you are, who you are and how you want to be portrayed.

I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself.

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

I do not think I reinvent myself. Wearing my hair differently or changing my style of dress is playing dress-up. I don't take it too seriously.

I don't know what else I would be if I wasn't me. I am not looking from the outside, looking back. I am who I am.

I've never, ever labeled myself.

Who am I, really? I prefer to leave that up to the observer, because I will never finish answering that.

I couldn't put into a capsule one thing that represents me, I don't think.

Some people want to define themselves, and they should, as it's part of their identity. For me personally, I've never really had a label for myself.

Nobody else can tell you what you are.

I think, a lot of my career and my life before I went to Sweden, I felt like I was trying to be someone else.

Try to figure out who you really are and not who you want other people to think you are.

My work is trying to at least define myself on my own terms, and then if other people enjoy things that's a lovely addition.

Don't get confused with what people say you are, with who you know you are.

One of the other reasons for writing this book [My Beloved World] was to hold on to the person you first met. More of the world knows about me now and follows me in a way that never happened before. I didn't want me, the inside of me, to change. Because I liked Sonia, the Sonia who has been. So another reason for writing the book was to hold on to that - whatever the best in Sonia was, to try to capture it.

It's important to be self-aware about what people are saying about you, but even more so, be very aware of who you actually are, and to have that be the main priority.

I've played myself before this ["Brent Spiner"] - and I've played myself since, for that matter - and playing yourself one of the most difficult characters you can play, 'cause God knows most of us don't know who that is.

We rigidify our self-image to portray a certain identity to the world, which is one of the key impediments to authenticity.

We all perform our lives in a way. And the actor is a perfect metaphor to get at that theme of 'how do we find our authentic selves?' And that we all - whether we're actors or not - perform ourselves. As a way of searching. As a way of fumbling around and trying to say, is this my voice? Is this who I am?

Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth.

My problem was I let myself become known before I knew myself.

For myself, I do not now know in any concrete human terms wherein my individuality consists. In my present human form of consciousness I simply cannot tell.

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.

What doesn't feel okay to me, what feels a little bit out of balance, is when you want to turn yourself into something else - when you want to be another person.