Quotes about Self-awareness

Is that all we are? he thinks. Unmistakable clothing, a hairstyle, a few exaggerated features, a gesture? —

But then it came to me that who I really am is a person who doesn't need to know who he really is, in the usual sense. What does it mean, anyway - family background and so forth? People use it mostly as an excuse for their own snobbery, or else their failings. I'm free of the temptation, that's all. I'm free of the strings. Nothing ties me down.

I walk away from her, guilt on my hands, absolving myself: I'm a good person. She could have been dying. No one else stopped. I'm a fool, to confuse this with goodness. I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly

I sink down into my body as into a swamp, fenland, where only I know the footing. Treacherous ground, my own territory.

But what if she discovers the truth? What he suspects is the truth. That he's patchwork, a tin man, his heart stuffed with sawdust. He thinks of her waiting for him, somewhere else, an island, subtropical, not muggy, her long hair waving in the sea breeze, a red hibiscus tucked behind one ear. If he's lucky she'll wait till that happens, till he can get there to be with her.

I have to be more careful about my memories, I have to be sure they're my own and not the memories of other people telling me what I felt, how I acted, what I said: if the events are wrong the feelings I remember about them will be wrong too, I'll start inventing them and there will be no way of correcting it, the ones who could help are gone.

I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then.

Most of the time, it's your thinking, not your talent, that holds you back.

You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.

There is not one among us in whom a devil does not dwell; at some time, on some point, that devil masters each of us... It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts.

I had an occasional flash of understanding, but then got selfishly wrapped up again in my own problems and pleasures.

No, I'm not afraid, except when it comes to things about myself, but I'm working on that.