The Authenticity Project Quotes

“The truth often isn't pretty. It's not aspirational. It doesn't fit neatly into a little square on Instagram.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in. —LEONARD COHEN”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift,” she’d chant to herself as she brushed her teeth. “It’s not happy people who are grateful, it’s grateful people who are happy,” she’d say as she brushed her hair.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“in a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Meet force with softness. Recipe for life. Now you understand.’ And, strangely, he did.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Mother is a verb, not a noun.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Preparation is the key to effective spontaneity.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“You have such energy. You're like the sun. When you're interested in someone, you turn your rays towards them and they luxuriate in your warmth. But then you turn somewhere else, leaving them in the shadow, and they spend all their energy trying to recreate the memory of your light.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“When we first come here in 1973, two men came to restaurant and say, ‘Go back to China and take your filthy, foreign food with you.’ I say, ‘You are angry. Anger comes from stomach. Sit. I bring you soup. For free. It will make you feel better.’ They ate my wonton soup. Recipe from my grandmother. They have been customers of restaurant for forty years. Meet force with softness. Recipe for life. Now you understand.” And, strangely, he did.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Then he’d discovered that routines were crucial. They created buoys he could cling to to keep himself afloat.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Monica, why does everything have to have a point? Why does it all have to be part of a plan? Sometimes it's best to let things just grow naturally, like wildflowers.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Perhaps the compulsion to fill every inch of space was because it made him feel less alone,”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“After I left, I learned to be my own sun.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Besides,’ continued Julian, ‘you can slam down a phone like that. You can’t slam down a mobile. Imagine, a whole generation who’ll never know the joy of slamming down a phone.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Tai chi is about the balance of yin and yang. If you use hardness to resist force, then both sides will break. Tai chi meets hardness with softness, so incoming force exhausts itself. It is philosophy for life also. You understand?”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“How well do you know the people who live near you? How well do they know you? Do you even know the names of your neighbors? Would you realize if they were in trouble, or hadn’t left their house for days? Some people withhold the truth about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth about you? The one thing that defines you, that makes everything else about you fall into place? Would you be willing to share openly with those real people around you? Maybe telling that story would change your life, or the life of someone you’ve not yet met. That’s what I want to find out.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“How extraordinary that she had been envying Monica’s life, when all the time all Monica wanted was what she took most for granted.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“He had the rather uncomfortable feeling that he only really existed in the eye of the beholder, that when he stopped being noticed, he actually stopped being. Did that make him horribly shallow? And if so, did it matter?”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Everyone lies about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth instead? The one thing that defines you, that makes everything else about you fall into place?”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Everyone lies about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth instead? The one thing that defines you, that makes everything else about you fall into place? Not on the internet, but with those real people around you?”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Surely it would be better to live a messy, flawed, sometimes not very pretty life that was real and honest, than to constantly try to live up to a life of perfection that was actually a sham?”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Tai chi meets hardness with softness, so incoming force exhausts itself. It is philosophy for life also.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Monica opened her kitchen cupboard, which was embarrassingly bare. “I’ve got some cooking chocolate, if you’d like some,” she said, breaking off a square and putting it in her mouth, feeling her energy returning with the infusion of sweetness. Now the tension had dropped she realized how hungry and exhausted she was. “Monica, stop!” said Riley. “You can’t eat that. It’s poisonous.” “What on earth are you talking about?” asked Monica, her mouth full of chocolate. “Cooking chocolate. It’s poisonous until it’s cooked.” “Riley, did your mother tell you that when you were little?” “Yes!” he replied. She watched the penny drop. “She lied to me, didn’t she? To stop me stealing the chocolate.” “That’s one of the things I love so much about you. You always assume that people are good and telling the truth, because that’s how you are. You always think that things will turn out well and, because of that, they generally do. By the way, did she tell you that when the ice-cream van played music it meant they’d run out of ice cream?” “Yes, she did actually,” he replied. “I do have a dark side, you know. Everybody thinks I’m so bloody nice, but I have as many evil thoughts as the next man. Honestly.” “No, you don’t, Riley,” she said, sitting down next to him on the sofa. “There’s so much I love about you,” she said, passing him a few squares of chocolate, “but I don’t love you.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Hazard noted Monica’s use of a colon. It looked a little incongruous. He didn’t think people did grammar anymore. They barely did writing. Just texts, and emojis.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“Emmeline Pankhurst didn’t chain herself to those railings so we could spend our lives as a tiny cog in someone else’s wheel. Be your own boss. Create something. Employ people. Be fearless. Do something you really love. Make it all worthwhile. So, she had done it.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“What I discovered is that telling the truth about your life really can work magic, and change the lives of many other people for the better.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“My biological clock is ticking so loudly that it’s keeping me awake at night.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“How much time did her ovaries have left? Were they already packing their suitcases for a relaxing retirement on the Costa Brava?”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“One of the benefits of being an artist is that you spend so much time watching people, looking not just at all the shades and contours of their faces, but into their souls. It gives you an almost uncanny insight.”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project

“It’s not happy people who are grateful, it’s grateful people who are happy,”
― Clare Pooley, The Authenticity Project