Philip Pullman Quotes

You cannot force somebody to be a different person.

I feel it's important to show that one thing that you do doesn't define you as a human being. It doesn't mean there aren't ramifications or you shouldn't pay for that but its not who you are.

Changing your nature is the hardest thing to do. But I discovered that you can be who you choose to be.

There's no reason to change what you are, but if you're not being you, then you need to acknowledge that.

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.

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.

Who you are and what you think of yourself is constantly changing.

People transform in some ways, and they remain exactly the same in others. Often, the thing you'd like to change the most about yourself is where you will forever remain stuck.

You can't change people.

I can't just suddenly become 'Little Peace and Love Jair'... I've got to carry on being the same person.

I think, personally, it's our flaws that define us to us - or maybe it's just me.

I think when you start changing things, you're not being yourself.

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.

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

it takes a lot of rehearsal to become yourself.

One of the basic laws of human existence is: find yourself, know yourself, be yourself.

Every decision you make - every decision that you make every second - is not a decision about what to do, it is a decision about who you are. Every act is an act of self-definition.

People don't change who they are. They only change what they do with it.

But who are we, really? Just a bundle of good genes and bad genes mixed with good habits and bad habits. And since there's no gene for coolness or confidence, then being uncool and unconfident are just bad habits, which can be changed with enough guidance and will power.

I wonder how I seem to them. They must see someone I don't see. Someone capable and strong. Someone I can't be; someone I can be.

It took me years to learn that character is fate and that no one can be made over.

To explore different parts of yourself and different emotional lives... not to hide from who you are but to actually explore who you are.

We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.

It only seems that there is something more important for you to do than to just quietly be yourself.

It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.