Joanne Harris Quotes

I'm always aware that there are, broadly speaking, two different ways to act: there is acting, and then there's being, and I'm always more interested in that.

Man is a real man, and can live and act manfully in this world, not in the strength of opinions, not according to what he thinks, but according to what he is .

To be rather than to seem.

I'm me, and I'm here, and I'm writing.

It is not the number of facts he knows, but how much of a fact he is himself, that proves the man.

Be - don't try to become.

The truth is: you don’t have a life, you are life.

It is not so much what we say or do that educates; what really educates is who we are.

Man is effective in the world not only through what he does, but above all through what he is.

The soul is the truth of who we are.

Every man knows that his highest purpose in life cannot be reduced to any particular relationship. If a man prioritizes his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer his full, undivided presence.

What are we when we are alone? Some, when they are alone, cease to exist.

We've all got an identity. You can't avoid it. It's what's left when you take everything else away.

What has no shadow has no strength to live.

You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

Look directly into every mirror. Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story, and our story starts: We were here.

Like a shadow, I am and I am not.

There is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is, and you are it.

If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being.

Who would you be but who you are?

No being can be what he is unless he is putting his essence into action in his field.

You are what exists before all stories.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

The man, most man, works best for men: and, if most man indeed, he gets his manhood plainest from his soul.

You're young and you're always in pursuit your young manhood. You're trying to figure out - what does that mean? What does - you know, there's a lot of pressure on young men to sort that out. And, you know, we tend to gravitate towards one-dimensional iconography as far as what it means to be a fully grown man. And you can get lost in so much of it out there.