Authenticity Crisis Quotes

I hate people thinking I'm some pretentious fraud.

I am not a wolf in sheep's clothing, I'm a wolf in wolf's clothing.

She had for so many years been trying to be like other people, that she was now like nothing in heaven or earth.

She knows the rituals, she knows how we're supposed to be behaving...But I think these things are impenetrable and fraudulent, and I can't do them without feeling I'm acting.

The problem with the Dorises and the Nicki Minajes and Mileys is that they reach their goal very quickly. There is no long-term vision, and they forget that once you get into that whirlpool, then you have to fight the system that solidifies around you in order to keep being the outsider you claim you represent.

In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later invades the regions of Literature.

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.

Overall, looking at the stories [Black Mirror], almost every story we've ever done is concerned with authenticity or reality in some way.

I do feel like a fraud a lot of the time because I've never been interested in people who say 'I'm a writer', 'I'm an artist'. Too much is made of the role and not enough of the work. We are such a celebrity-driven age and a status-driven age, that the status becomes more important than the actual work.

I'm the original hunter-down-of-fabulous-things. Twenty years ago I sat down and decided that I would create a really wonderful image, an unforgettable image. And now I'm kind of stuck with it. It's like when I don't wear my fringy, gypsy stuff, people kind of look at me like, 'What's wrong?

I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at.

You wouldn't want to be called a sell-out by selling a product. Selling out was frowned on, whereas now you can major in it at business school.

People often trust low-res images because they look more real. But of course they are not more real, just easier to fake. [...] You never see a 10-megapixel photograph of Big Foot or the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster.

The problem of pretending to be alive.

I feel as if someone is going to come along, feel my collar and say: 'Do you really think you can get people to read books you've made up about people that don't exist?'

When real is gone, then there is no longer a litmus test for that which deviates from it. It's all real because it's all 'real.'

We can no longer afford to be entertained beyond the point of accountability. We can't keep selling each other out and be willing to do anything to be seen, to be famous or to be rich.

I feel that the people I see in the media are sometimes more real than I am, which is utter bullshit.

In my father's generation, the product was 80 percent of what you were putting into the world, and your personal life was 20 percent. It now seems that 80 percent of the product I put out is silly, made-up stories and what I'm wearing.

Whatever I do seems artificial and false, to me.

Obama's folksy come-on is as bad as Madonna's faux British - and both are in need of fresh inspiration.

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!

I have actor friends, but they're not famous. I feel like if you're an actor or - famous, you have to overly prove that you're a normal, cool person.

I worked with someone else's photos; I cropped them in whatever way I wanted and put words on top of them. I knew how to do it with my eyes closed. Why couldn't that be my art?