self image Quotes

“The mirror in my room in the Windsor Hotel in Paris reflected my favorite image of me- a darkly handsome young airline pilot, smooth-skinned, bull-shouldered, and immaculately groomed.”

“A man’s alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself.”

“Trouble was, at the time I didn’t know what I was or who I was.”

“Sophie got herself to the mirror, and found that she had to hobble. The face in the mirror was quite calm, because it was what she expected to see. It was the face of a gaunt old woman, withered and brownish, surrounded by wispy white hair. Her own eyes, yellow and watery, stared out at her, looking rather tragic. ‘Don’t worry, old thing,’ Sophie said to the face. ‘You look quite healthy. Besides, this is much more like you really are.‘”

“Without a mother or mother-figure to guide her, a daughter also has to piece together a female self-image of her own.”

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was- I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.”

“I shut the bathroom door and caught sight of my face in the mirror. I had no idea how quickly it was to change, to fade. If I had, I would have stared at my reflection, memorizing it. It was the last time I would look into a real mirror for more than a decade.”

“As we got older, I didn’t seem to exist, except in relation to her.”

“Except that’s how it must have looked from a distance, because they never knew it was Freak who rescued me—or his genius brain and my big dumb body.”

“Making ourselves feel ugly is not fun.”

“You don’t believe all that crap, do you—that there’s only one way to look, and everyone’s programmed to agree on it?”

“You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your mind is so preoccupied with false self-images.”

“There is no looking-glass here and I don’t know what I am like now... The girl I saw was myself not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us – hard, cold, and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?”

“After a moment, I realized I was just gawking at myself in the mirror and had to smile. For a girl who hated looking at herself, I was at risk of becoming vain”

“I’m glad I’m not perfect- I’d be bored to death.”

“When he looks in the mirror, he might notice his hair needs a trim. So he’ll probably ask for a pair of nail scissors.”

“Everyone used to say, ‘What a nice looking bunch of ducklings-all except that one. Boy, he’s really ugly.’ The really ugly duckling heard these people, but he didn’t care. He knew that one day he would probably grow up to be a swan and be bigger and look better than anything in the pond.”

“What was Sheila Tubman talking about? I looked the same as always. And why did she think Tootsie was lucky not to look like me? Unless it was my ears. Lately, they seemed too big.”

“The truth is—and how long it has been true, I’m not sure, but it was true in my generation and it is true of girls growing up today—an American woman no longer has a private image to tell her who she is, or can be, or wants to be.”

“This was how Desiree thought of herself then: the single dynamic force in Stella’s life, a gust of wind strong enough to rip out her roots. This was the story Desiree needed to tell herself and Stella allowed her to. They both felt safe inside.”

“Because I know I’m not getting fatter, but his front door may be getting thinner.”

“Oh, I could endure anything if I only thought my hair would be a handsome auburn when I grew up. It would be so much easier to be good if one’s hair was a handsome auburn, don’t you think?”

“Ruby ought to be Elaine because she is so fair and has such lovely long golden hair—Elaine had ‘all her bright hair streaming down,’ you know. And Elaine was the lily maid. Now, a red-haired person cannot be a lily maid.”

The world calls me beautiful. It is something to be well received. I like a favorable reception; it expands the countenance, and those around me do not then appear so ugly. I possess a share of wit, and a certain relative sensibility, which enables me to draw from life in general, for the support of mine, all I meet with that is good, like the monkey who cracks the nut to get at its contents.