Marya Hornbacher Quotes

As a little kid growing up in Hollywood, I was called 'a little crazy'. And now I guess I'm still that way.

Treating an identity as an illness invites real illness to make a braver stand.

People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want heroes; what they want is to see you fall.

The healthiest and holiest people are the people who laugh at themselves the most. Failure helps us take God more seriously and ourselves less seriously.

I'm Tally Youngblood. Make me pretty." -Tally Youngblood

Don't be so hard on yourself, don't put pressure on yourself, life is just a chain of experiments and results, and you'll be perfect when you're dead.

My advice: Don't waste so much time worrying about your skin or your weight. Develop what you do, what you put your hands on in the world.

I think people say women come into their prime in their 40s. And then for some reason our society just wants to go... it's like a dead flower.

Your illness is not your identity. Your chemistry is not your character.

It isn't fair that there's pressure exerted on those who choose to live on the edges of the bell-shaped curve of normal.

What others think of us is not our concern - it is their concern... It is important only that we radiate life. Every individual must be a joy to himself, to his family and to his society.

There's a lot of negative messaging and it beats on you after a while. And people are growing up with that stuff and they start believing it themselves.

Growing up is a trap," snapped Dr. Robbins. "When they tell you to shut up, they mean stop talking. When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing. Reach a nice level plateau and settle there, predictable and unchanging, no longer a threat.

It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.

When you are in your 20s and you're not married with kids, you're having fun. But when you're in your 30s and you're not married and don't have kids, you begin to develop a Peter Pan complex. As you grow older, you have more responsibilities and you have to step up to them.

So often, we're expected to maintain some sort of standard - that won't get you where you need to go.

I'm not going to conform, and hurt myself, and do something crazy to be a size 2.

If you go to a therapist, they say, 'Are you sure? How do you feel about your wrinkles?' And I say, 'I don't know, because I don't really see them.' I see my hands, but I don't see my face, so it's not a torment. I only see it for five minutes in the morning when I brush my teeth! When you read women's magazines you always read about this drama of getting old, about anti-aging cream and plastic surgery and whatever else. But I think if you're independent, like I have grown to be, it's welcome.

Unfortunately, most people do not stop to feel their tiredness. Faced with the pressures of life, they believe that it is a matter of survival to go on as they have been. Feeling tired raises a deep fear that they may not be able to continue the struggle. Many find it difficult to say, ‘I can’t.’ As children, they were taught that where there’s a will, there’s a way. To say, ‘I can’t,’ is to admit failure, which is seen as evidence that they are unworthy of love.

Women with body image or eating disorders are not a special category; [they’re] just more extreme in their response to a culture that emphasizes thinness and impossible standards of appearance for women instead of individuality and health.

We grow up being told, "Be a good girl." When you're told to be good, you have to get rid of whatever is bad.

Parents need to be more accepting of who their kids are and less concerned about what society thinks they need to be.

I thought if I had straight hair and a perfect nose, my whole career would be different.

I keep saying, 'Don't change. Be who you are,' but society is really strong in their opinions.

The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes- all right. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills- like a God. It is the Ordinary made beautiful; it is also the Average made leathal. The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health.