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12b76c3 The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. freedom individuality inspirational mask personality revolution truth Jim MORRISON
b3611f5 I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me. differences emotions loneliness people personality Jonathan Safran Foer
f6d592e Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. inspirational perfectionism personality potential self-improvement William Faulkner
012f5c2 There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting. interesting personality self-knowledge L.M. Montgomery
2ed50b0 What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. labels names personality William Shakespeare
1275fb0 Kiss a lover, Dance a measure, Find your name And buried treasure. Face your life, It's pain, It's pleasure, Leave no path untaken. dancing life love name neil-gaiman pain personality pleasure the-graveyard-book treasure Neil Gaiman
dccb800 Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality. educational expectation expectations life personality positive teaching wisdom Brian Tracy
473f701 Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? evil personality Bret Easton Ellis
bb7ee05 "If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No--Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men." personality promise responsiveness romanticism sensitivity F. Scott Fitzgerald
1d8ac08 How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by such misunderstandings? How many opportunities have you been denied--or, for that matter, awarded--because someone failed to see you properly? How many friends have you lost, how many have you gained, because they glimpsed some element of your personality that shone through for only an instant, and in circumstances you could never reproduce? An illusion of water shimmering at the far bend of a highway. illusion life misunderstanding personality Kevin Brockmeier
e50b4c0 I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite. life personal personality Jean-Paul Sartre
f6546cd "the worst thing," he told me, "is bitterness, people end up so bitter." bitterness bukowski death in-the-end individuality life love personality poem poetry self soul Charles Bukowski
86e9e9c For I am--or I was--one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all--a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named--but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey's bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well--by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion. life personality pride virtue world James Baldwin
8e339c1 He really was beautiful. I know boys aren't supposed to be, but he was. personality John Green
5aa0350 Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don't even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed. depression growth pain personality spirituality Alice Walker
e01d239 I've always been a slow learner in some areas of my life.mostly the areas known as myself. Or maybe I should say 'selves.'because the fact is, I've never, even as a child, felt I'm only one self, only one person. I've always felt I'm quite a few more than one. For example, there's my jokey self, there's my morose and fed-up self,there's my lewd and disgusting self. There's my clever-clogs self, and my fading-violet-who-cant-make-up-her-mind-about-anything self. There's my untidy-clothes-everywhere-all-over-my-room self, and my manically tidy self when I want my room to be minimalist and Zen to the nth degree. There's my confidant, arrogant self and my polite and reasonable and good listener self. There's my self-righteous self and my wickedly bad self, my flaky self and my bsentimental self. There are selfs I like and selfs I don't like.there's my little-girl selfnwhonlikes to play silly games and there's my old-woman self when I'm quite sure I'm eighty and edging towards geriatric inspirational personality self Aidan Chambers
9be0866 But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality. personality vanity wisdom Oscar Wilde
a6922d3 She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things. eyes inspirational looking personality Ernest Hemingway
f1e2d61 A Manifesto for Introverts 1. There's a word for 'people who are in their heads too much': thinkers. 2. Solitude is a catalyst for innovation. 3. The next generation of quiet kids can and must be raised to know their own strengths. 4. Sometimes it helps to be a pretend extrovert. There will always be time to be quiet later. 5. But in the long run, staying true to your temperament is key to finding work you love and work that matters. 6. One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards. 7. It's OK to cross the street to avoid making small talk. 8. 'Quiet leadership' is not an oxymoron. 9. Love is essential; gregariousness is optional. 10. 'In a gentle way, you can shake the world.' -Mahatma Gandhi introversion introverts introverts-susan-cain-quote personality personality-types quiet quietness Susan Cain
b26057a The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace. And, above all things, they are not to interfere with other people or judge them in any way. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realize through that sin his true perfection. freedom oscar personality prison soul soul-of-a-man violence wilde Oscar Wilde
2a66041 The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage. personality Jonathan Franzen
7a5dfe7 Contrary to what you may have heard from Henry Rollins or/and Ian MacKaye and/or anyone else who joined a band after working in an ice cream shop, you can't really learn much about a person based on what kind of music they happen to like. As a personality test, it doesn't work even half the time. However, there is at least thing you learn: The most wretched people in the word are those who tell you they like every kind of music 'except country.' People who say that are boorish and pretentious at the same time. personality Chuck Klosterman
302769e The most effective attitude to adopt is one of supreme acceptance. The world is full of people with different characters and temperaments. We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate, and aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those who repress their desires or deny the existence of them, often acting them out in the most underhanded ways. Some people have dark qualities that are especially pronounced. You cannot change such people at their core, but must merely avoid becoming their victim. You are an observer of the human comedy, and by being as tolerant as possible, you gain a much greater ability to understand people and to influence their behavior when necessary human-nature personality Robert Greene
210dcf2 There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character. flexibility humorous personal-development personality self Jean-Jacques Rousseau
aa82e4f The average personality reshapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul - desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change. All right, here were two people who never would change. That is what Mildred Grossman had in common with Holly Golightly. They would never change because they'd been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic. personality Truman Capote
4bf203c . . . clumsiness is often mated with a love of solitude. isolation loneliness personality solitude Virginia Woolf
f801002 However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will? description emotion observation passion people personality psychology sincerity ugliness Honoré de Balzac
cc51974 She lacks the core of sureness, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on reflections of herself in others' eyes. She does not dare to be herself. beauty personality Anaïs Nin
5941c16 Stop thinking all the time that you're in the way, that you're bothering the person next to you. If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have courage to complain, that's their problem. love personality Paulo Coelho
4782e1e From the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul brain and power. brain connection kindred-spirits personality power soul Oscar Wilde
ac63bdd I'm a conundrum. Or an enigma. I forget which. mystery personality James A. Owen
8ecc2a2 Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos, we see despite all the chaos. chaos cosmos identity personality stories story Madeleine L'Engle
9e3321e If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that registered earthquakes ten thousand miles away. personality F. Scott Fitzgerald
834503a I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that. So are we all. history humans life personality soul time James Baldwin
64c5beb "I snorted "oh, beauty. What's that good for?" Mary stared, her eyes round. "It won you the prince, did it not?" I snorted again, I prefer to think that he was captivated by my charming personality." I giggled to let Mary know I was trying to make fun of myself." humor personality Margaret Peterson Haddix
1596266 "It's sweet and everything, but it's like you're not even there sometimes. It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things." "Like what?" I asked. My mouth was dry. "I don't know. Like take their hands when the slow song comes up for a change. Or be the one who asks someone for a date. Or tell people what you need. Or what you want." being-confident being-in-love being-strong being-yourself how-to-get-a-girl how-to-get-a-guy nice-guy-syndrome personality relationships strength Stephen Chbosky
d084c2c My mother finally took me to a child psychologist, who knew exactly what I was, but she just couldn't accept it and kept trying to tell my folks I was reading their body language and was very observant, so I had good reason to imagine I heard people's thoughts. Of course, she couldn't admit I was literally hearing people's thoughts because that just didn't fit into her world. individuality outside-comfort-zone personality Charlaine Harris
6d498cf Not everyone is allotted the chance to become a personality; most remain types, and never experience the rigor of becoming an individual. But those who do so inevitably discover that these struggles bring them into conflict with the normal life of average people and the traditional values and bourgeois conventions that they uphold. A personality is the product of a clash between two opposing forces: the urge to create a life of one's own and the insistence by the world around us that we conform. Nobody can develop a personality unless he undergoes revolutionary experiences. The extent of those experiences differs, of course, from person to person, as does the capacity to lead a life that is truly personal and unique. personality Hermann Hesse
cecd3d8 In Irena's head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and at the same time the curtain of oblivion wraps her lewdness in an all-concealing darkness. As if a poet were writing his greatest poem with ink that instantly disappears. drinking forget forgetting love personality poet poetry sex writing Milan Kundera
41f3477 Man is complete in himself. When they go into the world, the world will disagree with them. That is inevitable. The world hates Individualism. But that is not to trouble them. They are to be calm and self-centred. If a man takes their cloak, they are to give him their coat, just to show that material things are of no importance. If people abuse them, they are not to answer back. What does it signify? The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace. And, above all things, they are not to interfere with other people or judge them in any way. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realise through that sin his true perfection. freedom oscar personality prison soul soul-of-a-man violence wilde Oscar Wilde
d963a71 Most people who do a lot of exercise, particularly in the form of competitive athletics, have unneurotic, extraverted, optimistic personalities to begin with. (Marathon runners are exceptions to this.) personality Robert M. Sapolsky
d5bbad9 The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace. personality Oscar Wilde
f973a75 "Does it help if we're so strong-willed, stubborn, ambitious, and selfish that we always overcome everything in our way no matter what?" asked Wang-mu. "I think those are the pertinent virtues, yes," said Peter. "Then let's do it. That's us in spades." personality Orson Scott Card
698bd7a Most people, in my opinion, steal much of what they are. If they didn't what poor items they would be. personality stealing Julian Barnes
29798de But however good you get at translating personality into line or paint it's no go if your personality isn't worth translating. creativity personality John Fowles
6bda802 It might be a little silly for someone getting to be my age to put this into words, but I just want to make sure I get the facts down clearly : I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two everyday running alone, not speaking to anyone as well as four of five hours at my desk, to be neither difficult or boring. life life-philosophy lifestyle personal personalities personality Haruki Murakami
637921b Our natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid, though reason confesses that they are good people: there are others with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside whom we live content, as if the air about them did us good. faults nature people personality predilection temper Charlotte Brontë
aa15dca When it came to hiding, even Gwin had nothing to teach Dustfinger. A strange sense of curiosity had always driven him to explore the hidden, forgotten corners of this and any other place, and all that knowledge had now come in useful. character personality skills Cornelia Funke
a04acfc Sometimes in the summer evenings they walked up the hill to watch the afterglow clinging to the tops of the western mountains and to feel the breeze drawn into the valley by the rising day-heated air. Usually they stood silently for a while and breathed in peacefulness. Since both were shy they never talked about themselves. Neither knew about the other at all. men mountains nature personality women John Steinbeck
b2f6134 Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound. He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks. He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in battens of cowardice. personality philosophy psychology tom-hamilton John Steinbeck
de8d70e He was welcome everywhere he went, and was well-aware of his inability to tolerate solitude. He felt no inclination to be alone and avoided it as far as possible; he didn't really want to become any better acquainted with himself. He knew that if he wanted to show his talents to best advantage, he needed to strike sparks off other people to fan the flames of warmth and exuberance in his heart. On his own he was frosty, no use to himself at all, like a match left lying in its box. personality solitude Stefan Zweig
83cb55e Oh, I have always been proud, I always wanted all or nothing! You see it was just because I am not one who will accept half a happiness, but always wanted all esteem happiness personality pride proud settle Fyodor Dostoyevsky
29ba9b1 What's fun for other people may not be fun for you- and vice versa. happiness personality preferences Gretchen Rubin
94a7a16 I don't know what understanding myself is. I don't look inside. I don't believe I exist behind myself. clarity existence feeling meaning-of-life nature paganism pantheism personae personality reality seeing self understanding Alberto Caeiro
93db366 Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe - and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! Why don't you go whole hog? Get him a brief case and make him carry it wherever he goes - make him feel shame if he doesn't have it. god grace human innocence man mars martian naked nudity personality psychotic shame society taboo-breaking taboos tribe work-ethic Robert A. Heinlein
3984234 Before I can say , I was. Heraclitus and I, prophets of flux, know that the flux is composed of parts that imitate and repeat each other. Am or was, I am cumulative, too. I am everything I ever was, whatever you and Leah may think. I am much of what my parents and especially my grandparents were -- inherited stature, coloring, brains, bones (that part unfortunate), plus transmitted prejudices, culture, scruples, likings, moralities, and moral errors that I defend as if they were personal and not familial. family heritage identity morality past personal-history personality predispositions values Wallace Stegner
2145e36 I don't think most people would like my personality. There might be a few -- very few, I would imagine- who are impressed by it, but rarely would anyone like it. personal personality Haruki Murakami
ccc7bc4 There were some people, it seemed, who were incapable of being pleasant about anything. Of course, the cars that such people drove tended to be difficult as well. Nice cars have nice drivers; bad cars have bad drivers. A person's gearbox revealed everything that you could want to know about that person, thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. personality Alexander McCall Smith
760e911 He said, it's rather like your voice. You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts. It's what distinguishes all great art from the other kind. personality John Fowles
49a4081 At once he became an enigma. One side or the other of his nature was perfectly comprehensible; but both sides together were bewildering. enigma personality Jack London
0e66e15 I should thank you'', she said. His lips stilled, and she felt him smile against his skin. ''For what?'' ''Everything, really. But mostly for being you love personality Julia Quinn
7d1e3b4 She tried to remind herself that beauty was only skin deep, but that didn't offer any helpful excuses when she was berating herself for never knowing what to say to people. There was nothing more depressing than an ugly girl with no personality. It hurts, because deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often very funny, but somehow her personality always got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and she found herself saying the wrong thing or, more often, nothing at all. personality self-esteem Julia Quinn
a781adf For the first time, Ender had found a living mind he could admire. ender feelings genius life personality Orson Scott Card
ffd8a8c He (William Cort) had some desire to be successful, but it did not burn so strongly in him that he was prepared to overcome his character to achieve it. character personality Iain Pears
5db31f4 Excitement about things became a habit, a part of my personality, and the expectation that I should enjoy new experiences often engendered the enjoyment itself. cheerfulness curiosity enthusiasm parenthood personality Doris Kearns Goodwin
e10772f He lost the great big outward thing, the good- looking package, and the real parts endured. They shine through like crazy, the brillian mind and humor, the depth of generosity, the intense blue yes, those beautiful hands. character charismatic inner looks mappereance personality Anne Lamott
b1c1ec4 Though why should we expect age to mellow us? If it isn't life's business to reward merit, why should it be life's business to give us warm, comfortable feelings towards its end? What possible evolutionary purpose could nostalgia serve? history mellow memory merit nostalgia personality philosophy time Julian Barnes
5bf8563 To that point, he had always found the vicomtesse overflowing with friendly politeness, that sweet-flowing grace conferred by an aristocratic education, and which is never truly there unless it comes, automatically and unthinkingly, straight from the heart. [...] For anyone who had learned the social code, and Rastignac had absorbed it all in a flash, these words, that gesture, that look, that inflection in her voice, summed up all there was to know about the nature and the ways of men and women of her class. He was vividly aware of the iron hand underneath the velvet glove; the personality, and especially the self-centeredness, under the polished manners; the plain hard wood, under all the varnish. [...] Eugene had been entirely too quick to take this woman's word for her own kindness. Like all those who cannot help themselves, he had signed on the dotted line, accepting the delightful contract binding both benefactor and recipient, the very first clause of which makes clear that, as between noble souls, perfect equality must be forever maintained. Beneficience, which ties people together, is a heavenly passion, but a thoroughly misunderstood one, and quite as scarce as true love. Both stem from the lavish nature of great souls. character hypocrisy kind kindness people personality ties Honoré de Balzac
6c3e9b7 We cannot escape our origins, however hard we try, those origins which contain the key -could we but find it- to all we later become personality psychoanalysis James Baldwin
30acfa6 Four months in the life of a seventeen-year-old is the stuff of swings and roundabouts;... Never again in your life do you possess the capacity for such total personality overhaul. personality Zadie Smith
f7057a0 God does not save us to make us forget our heritage, but to complete it. culture ministry personality Beth Moore
4e1b18a An intelligence completely dissociated from the physical, or at least an impression of it, was a strange, curiously limited and almost perverse thing, and the precise form that your physicality took had a profound, in some ways defining influence on your personality. intelligence personality physical spiritual Iain M. Banks
ba7e599 Within he felt that faint stirring of derision for the whole business of life which is the salt of the American mentality. Outwardly they are sentimental and enthusiastic and inwardly they are profoundly cynical. cynicism enthusiasm personality sentiment H.G. Wells
078c53f A man's work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, but in his book or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless. No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind. No one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul. facade persona personality society work W. Somerset Maugham
22c1257 I do not like these painted faces that look all alike; and I think women are foolish to dull their expression and obscure their personality with powder, rouge, and lipstick. cosmetics personality W. Somerset Maugham
60e257e If you don't love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It's not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the Divine. It must be displayed publicly. extroversion personality Susan Cain
8a779a9 Like everything else in the world, it is one man's work. individualism-quotes personality team-effort-myth Rudyard Kipling
5ab6901 As dye soaks fibres, drawn into them to change their colour forever, so does a memory, stinging or sweet, change the fibre of a man's character. memory personality Robin Hobb
218f11f I wanted to protect my professorial dignity and not lay myself open to laughter from the Americans, who when they do laugh, laugh raucously personality Jules Verne
85c7d40 An artist is a person first. personality Chaim Potok
cda2b46 Resentment was the hinge of her personality. personality personality-traits resentment Colson Whitehead
84c979d I'm not afraid of what I am. I'm afraid I will see what I am not. personality self Jeanette Winterson
072d4f4 It is indeed strange, given the heavy emphasis placed by chroniclers on Churchill's sheer magnitude of personality, that the ingredient of pure ambition should be so much ignored or even disallowed. biography larger-than-life personality winston-churchill Christopher Hitchens
87844fc She was herself unconscious of that faint hint of offishness which hung about her and repelled advances, an arrogance that stirred in people a peculiar irritation. They noticed her, admired her clothes, but that was all, for the self-sufficient uninterested manner adopted instinctively as a protective measure for her acute sensitiveness, in her child days, still clung to her. irritation personality self-sufficiency sensitivity sociability standoffishness Nella Larsen
87be22f But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with thick, dark hair, He would have made me that way, but He didn't Useful, then, might be to accept how I was made and embody myself fully therein. life personality Elizabeth Gilbert
bb6211b Novels are what I know, and the novel door in my personality is always open. novels personality reading Zadie Smith
d002522 Groves, with his eye for sizing up people who could get things done, saw the deep ambition Oppenheimer covered with his surface charm. impression leadership personality Garry Wills
c85243d [I]f he had to guess, he would say that the reason he doesn't want to loan the book out, to Ethan or anyone else, is because of the part of his personality that is one gigantic record-keeping system, a complex sifting and filing scheme that dictates what goes here and what goes there, turning his life into so many marks on a tablet. His mind would busy itself with the book's whereabouts every second it was away. He knows it would. filing loans ocd personality record-keeping thoughts Kevin Brockmeier
1bc80a7 Yet today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles. We're told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. introvert personality quiet Susan Cain
b7368dd Houses, like people, have their own peculiarities. houses peculiarity personality Maeve Gilmore
361451e You hate America, don't you?' 'That would be as silly as loving it,' I said. 'It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to a human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will. boundaries elves-and-pixies flaws imaginary pains personality pleasures real-estate virtues-and-vices Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
fb0d1cb Miss Benson had the power; which some people have, of carrying her wishes through to fulfillment; her will was strong, her sense was excellent, and people yielded to her - they did not know why. confidence convincing discretion personality sensible strength Elizabeth Gaskell
7f6c069 Manners matter, asserts the professor. What provokes rebellion, he asserts, is not as often a theory out allowing for arbitrary power but be excessive, brusque use of it by a particular individual. habits influence personality Robert J. Allison
41af884 "That's what attracts us to serious paintings, I think: that shortfall, which we might call "personality", or maybe even "pain"." pain personality Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
d22d24c There is at least as much contrariness in your character as in mine. Why not come and be contrary with me? personality Susanna Clarke
c2b565b People get rid of plenty when they move--sometimes they're changing not just places but personalities. castoffs furniture interior-decorating life lives moving personality Colson Whitehead
8bbf018 I ceased to serve a king and began, instead, to serve a kingdom. legacy patriotism personality Geraldine Brooks
f267906 Chaplin left the Keystone studios on a Saturday night in December after cutting his last film, without bidding farewell to any of his erstwhile colleagues; he spent Sunday in his room at the Los Angeles Athletic Club and on the following day he turned up for work at the Essanay Studios in Niles, California. Of course, everyone at Keystone knew about his imminent departure, but he could not bring himself to make a speech or shake hands. He just left. Sennett said later that 'as for Charles Spencer Chaplin, I am not at all sure that we know him'. He had never really been part of the team; he would never become a member of any group. groups introversion personality Peter Ackroyd
afb0050 Each of Nora's children had arrived on this earth as him or herself, the more she knew them, the more she felt it to be true. They were so different from one another, and from her. growing-up individuality mother motherhood parenthood parenting parents personality J. Courtney Sullivan
1c6458d Who is happier, those who are aware, and doubt, or those who are sure of what they believe in, and have never doubted or questioned it? The answer, she had concluded, was that this had nothing to do with happiness, which came upon you like the weather, determined by your personlaity. deep-thoughts happiness personality philosophical-musings philosophy weather Alexander McCall Smith
2ffabb6 I keep seeing my life darting off in the different directions it could have taken, as chance and circumstance, temperament and desire, open and close, open and close gates, routes, roadways. And yet there feels like an inevitability to who I am--just as of all the planets in all the universes, planet blue, this planet Earth, is the one that is home. decisions directions inevitability life personality Jeanette Winterson
37e2709 "The harder the push, the greater the Rebel push-back. I laughed when a Rebel friend told me, 'No one can tell me to do anything. I recently got an email saying "Please read" in the subject line, and I immediately deleted it." don-t-tell-me-what-i-can-t-do personality rebel rebellion resistance Gretchen Rubin
a56816a Waiting in the reception area, she had flicked through a news magazine that had been lying on the table for clients to read while waiting for their appointment. On the cover there had been a picture of a well-known politician, a man famous for his rudeness and aggression. She had looked at the eyes--the piercing, accusing eyes, and had seen only an impenetrable, defensive anger. Nothing--no forced smiles nor rehearsed protestation of concern, could cancel out the cold selfishness of those eyes. eyes personality politicians Alexander McCall Smith
a945c61 Ich war durch meine furchterliche Situation gezwungen, diese Spaltung in ein Ich Schwarz und ein Ich Weiss zumindest zu versuchen, um nicht erdruckt zu werden von dem grauenhaften Nichts um mich. personality third-reich thoughtful Stefan Zweig
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