Ourselves Quotes (page 87)
First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and third---before long the best lines cancel out---and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the picture have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children...
F. Scott Fitzgerald
I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way...I can't apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to... We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful...We realize that we are as ourselves unlimited and our experiences valid. It is for the rest of the world to recognize this, if they choose.
Alice Walker
It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to put ourselves on the same plane as God? acting as if we had no needs, as if we were not creatures, not dependent on Him and dependent, by His will, on material things, too.
Thomas Merton