Melissa Peterman Quotes

I became so consumed with trying to live up to what the public expected that I lost myself. I don't know of anyone else who can say this.

I think it hurt my performance because I stopped being me. That won't ever happen again.

Even after the first three series, I'm sure I would've been known all my life as James Herriot. I was concerned that I would dig the hole deeper, and I'm sure that's what I've done. I'm sure of it.

I feel that I fell somewhat under that category where I was using fighting to kind of run from my own self to an extent, to kind of numb the things that I thought about myself. When I had fighting taken away, I was forced to look at myself in the mirror and say, 'What are you without fighting?'

I had a moment a few years ago where I wasn't sure if I was acting for myself or because people expected it of me. A bit of a crisis of faith, I suppose. I did some soul-searching, took a break and decided I was going to live my life only for me.

Once you do something that people respond to, they understandably think of you in that way, and you want to work and it's fun and it's wonderful. I think a lot of people in all different fields find themselves in a moment of repeating certain beats. There's also a moment that is personally related to age as well - in whatever field you're in, you say, "Wait a minute, where am I and how did I get here? How has this changed from my original intent and what do I want to do about that now?" That's part of the process.

A women who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people's evaluations.

What are we taking from people and what do we give is a life-long struggle, I think, for most of us. Who are we? Do we like who we are? Do we know who we are? Do we care? Does anyone care? That's such a big topic. I could tackle that in many movies. So could other people.

I'd like to lose interest in myself.

It is human defect — to try to know oneself by the self of another.

I remember once imagining what my life would be like, what I'd be like. I pictured having all these qualities, strong positive qualities that people could pick up on from across the room. But as time passed, few became qualities that I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced, and the sorts of people I could be, all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to one - to who I am. And that's who I am.

The time has come to get clear about who you are and what you choose. There must come moments in every person's life when a decision is necessary. A big decision. A major choice. Such a time is now. What you get to choose today is who you are and who you choose to be, and what you wish to experience in your life. Remember, not to decide is to decide.

I’m trying to get away from roles. I used to identify myself strictly in terms of my role, but when your roles fall away, part of you falls with them.

Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes. It was a matter of misplaced self-respect.

If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they'd get along OK, but they'd both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.”

You really have to know who you are. It takes, uh it's not that easy.

I’m a screwed-up person who no longer knows how to communicate with the people I love. But I meant everything I told you in my letter. If I were your Nikki, I would have come back to you on Christmas Day, but I’m not Nikki. I know. And I’m sorry.

I've got an age that I do think of myself.

The most dangerous thing you can do is know who you are.

It goes back to the if identity becomes your achievement, what do you do, this is what happens? And I do think it leads to psychological disorders. You have to start doing things and stop thinking about yourself.

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.

...fact was she knew more about them than she knew about herself, having never had the map to discover what she was like. Could she sing? (Was it nice to hear when she did?) Was she pretty? Was she a good friend? Could she have been a loving mother? A faithful wife? Have I got a sister and does she favor me? If my mother knew me would she like me? (140)

One of the other reasons for writing this book [My Beloved World] was to hold on to the person you first met. More of the world knows about me now and follows me in a way that never happened before. I didn't want me, the inside of me, to change. Because I liked Sonia, the Sonia who has been. So another reason for writing the book was to hold on to that - whatever the best in Sonia was, to try to capture it.

I hear so many things about who I am supposed to be I hardly know what to believe. I am willing to tell all, but what Is it? Doubtless all these myths and legends will be straightened out eventually, but It may take years.

When I look at myself, I don't see the man I wanted to be.