“Intoxication reveals the true nature of the psyche, but not the soul.”
“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.”
“Your reputation is in the hands of others. That s what the reputation is. You can t control that. The only thing you can control is your character.”
“I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyone s life when character is fixed forever.”
“That is the saddest story. I clear my throat. Life is sad, I say. Not always, he replies, his voice soft. Sometimes, I say as he tucks a strand behind my ear. Sometimes it is.”
“I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
“If you want to know what a man s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
“The best index to a person s character is how he treats people who can t do him any good, and how he treats people who can t fight back.”
“Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’ ‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’ What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.”
“When you find a man you wish to marry, Tessa, remember this: You will know what kind of man he is not by the things he says, but by the things he does.”
“In the end you should always do the right thing even if it s hard.”
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome. And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody. And yours, he replied with a smile, is wilfully to misunderstand them.”
“If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he s a good man.”
“I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.”