Imposter Quotes

Several recent authors have written of "the imposter phenomenon," describing the feeling of many apparently successful people that their success is undeserved and that one day people will unmask them for the frauds they are. ~ Harold S. Kushner

Reading 'Blood Will Out,' one begins to understand how so many people were duped by Clark Rockefeller. All the imposter needs is some kind of initial agreement that he is who he says he is; thereafter, consensus builds via a network of human relationships. ~ Amity Gaige

Maybe we all have imposter syndrome and perpetually feel like our real life is right around the corner, ~ Anna Kendrick

The hardest thing to do in politics is campaign as someone you aren't. People can spot an imposter from a mile away. ~ Chuck Todd

I graduated in 2004 with an English degree and a case of imposter syndrome so intense that I convinced myself I "didn't have enough ideas" to become a writer of any kind. ~ Lindy West

He who claims to be sure of something for which there is no evidence is a fool, and he who acts on the basis of what cannot be proved is an imposter. ~ Han Fei

I am me. There is only one person in the world like me, and that's me. If you meet another me, he's an imposter. ~ Luke Alistar

There's nothing I want. There's nothing I can't do. I don't care about anything. No matter what, I am an imposter. An actor in my own life. ~ Michelle Hodkin

This disappearance, this annihilation is all a matter of appearances as seen through the eyes of the false self. The annihilation is only apparent, for the self being annihilated is itself only apparent. It is a self without God, that is, a self that can never exist. What is annihilated is our false self, our external self made absolute, the imposter, the mask (persona), the liar we think we are but are not. The annihilation therefore is not annihilation at all, for nothing real or genuine is annihilated. Rather, what is genuine is affirmed as our psychological, historical, social self and placed in its true relationship to God. All that is annihilated is the illusion of the self that cannot bear God's presence, save as an idol fabricated for the ego's own glorification. It is this "self" that is "annihilated" through God's merciful love. The annihilation is merciful for it, in fact, is the antithesis of annihilation. It is rather an obscure, inexplicable foretaste in faith of our final consummation as created persons. It is the mystery of the cross creatively at work in the foundations of consciousness, recreating our awareness that we might know God as he knows himself. ~ James Finley

What is conditional love?

Conditional love is an oxymoron.
Conditional love is an imposter of love.
Conditional love is something other than love,
because you cannot conditionalize the un-conditional. ~ Donald L. Hicks

First, let's pretend for a minute. Let's say that, as the imposter complex voice tells you, you really do have no idea what you're doing, you actually are fooling everyone, and it's true you are in fact a big, giant fraud. Okay, seriously think about what I just said. That would take an immense amount of work. That's pulling off a major heist, like stealing the Queen of England's entire hat collection or something. ~ Andrea Owen

There is no substitute for victory" Oscar Wilde
"I didn't say that--wouldn't have. Maybe it was Vince Lombardi" O.W.

"Not I, either. Try Count von Schlieffen" Vince Lombardi

"What's the big deal. I said it---I think. Doh!" Homer Simpson

"Imposter. 'Twas I." Homer the original (Greek guy) ~ James J. Bloom

It is far better that we admitted a thousand devils to roam at large than that we permitted one such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God and have credit among us. ~ Thomas Paine

And the characters are all invented as to their psychological evolution, though some are based upon those of real persons easily identifiable in that narrative. The drama is that of the actual events in its main development; but the vital incidents, or the vital uses of them, are the author's. At times he has enlarged them; at times he has paraphrased the accounts of the witnesses; in one instance he has frankly reproduced the words of the imposter as reported by one who heard Dylks's last address in ~ William Dean Howells

Chantal's only ruse ... was her shattering simplicity. While a weak man or an imposter is always more complicated than the problem he is trying to solve, and thinking to encompass his adversary, merely keeps prowling interminably around himself, the heroic nature will throw itself into the heart of the danger to turn it to its own use, just as captured artillery is turned about and aimed at the backs of the fleeing enemy. ~ Georges Bernanos

It was difficult to not compare the two men as they stood together. Mr. Beaufort was certainly dashing, with his stylish golden hair and the flair of his dress. But seeing him next to Philip, his appeal faded greatly in my mind. For it was obvious, comparing them side by side, that Mr. Beaufort was like a set of paste jewels - flashy on the outside but really an imposter, with nothing of great value within. Philip, on the other hand, shone like a real gem - without even trying. His clothes were just as well-made as Mr. Beaufort's, but he wore them with a natural, athletic grace, and he didn't employ any extreme fashions to create an impression. He was purely elegant, naturally, without thought or planning, and upon looking at them, I found that I would infinitely prefer the real gem to the imposter. ~ Julianne Donaldson

The Bible says that the devil is like a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). He comes in the darkness, and tries to frighten the children of God with his mighty roar. But when you switch on the light of the Word of God, you discover that there is no lion. There is only a mouse with a microphone! The devil is an imposter. Got it? ~ Reinhard Bonnke

Poetry was syllable and rhythm. Poetry was the measurement of breath. Poetry was time make audible. Poetry evoked the present moment; poetry was the antidote to history. Poetry was language free from habit. ~ Damon Galgut

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. ~ Joseph Brodsky

Like most other creatives, I struggle with self-sabotage, self-doubt, and feeling like an imposter more often than not. I struggle with expressing myself, because it does sometimes feel easier or safer not to. ~ Jeff Jarvis

If we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers [Gospels] father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor... We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications... That sect [Jews] had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust... Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law... That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.

[Letter to William Short, 4 August, 1820] ~ Thomas Jefferson

If I get clear of my debts, I care not though men call me bold, glib of tongue, audacious, impudent, shameless, a fabricator of falsehoods, inventor of words, practised in lawsuits, a pettifogger, a rattle, a fox, a sharper, a knave, a dissembler, a slippery fellow, an imposter, a rogue that deserves the cat-o-nine-tails, a blackguard, a twister, a licker-up of hashes; they call all this when they meet me, if they please, I care not. ~ Aristophanes

Noah turned to face his younger sister, arching one brow to a fairly smug height. Lenga lifted a brow back at him, giving him a delicate smattering of applause.
"And I was afraid you would never learn the art of diplomacy," she remarked, her lips twitching with her humor. "It merely took you the entire two and a half centuries of my life. Longer, actually. You had a few centuries' head start."
"Funny how you seem to recall the fact that I am far older than you only when it suits your arguments, my sister," he taunted her, reaching to tug on her hair as he had been doing since her childhood.
"Well, I can say with all honesty that this is the first time I have ever seen you forgo a good argument with Hannah, opting for peace instead. I was beginning to wonder if you were my brother at all. Perhaps some imposter . . ."
"Legna, be careful. You are speaking words of treason," he teased her, tugging her hair once more, making her turn around to swat at his hand.
"I don't know how you convinced the entire Council that you were mature enough to be King, Noah! You are such a child!" She twisted her body so he couldn't grab at her hair again. "And I swear, if you pull my hair once more like some sort of schoolyard bully, I am going to put you to sleep and shave you bald!"
Noah immediately raised his hands in acquiescence, laughing as Legna flushed in exasperation. For all her grace and ladylike ways, Noah's little sister was quite capable of making good on ~ Jacquelyn Frank

Lo didn't have a splendid time either. He drank something Captain America gave him. Turns out the Cap imposter wasn't too noble, having spiked his booze with roofies. Nerds can be vicious too. ~ Krista Ritchie

Clothes used to perplex me. I could never understand how to piece together an outfit the way Warner did. I thought it was a science I'd never crack; a skill beyond my grasp. But I'm realizing now that my problem was that I never knew who I was; I didn't understand how to dress the imposter living in my skin. What did I like? How did I want to be perceived? For years my goal was to minimize myself-- to fold and refold myself into a polygon of nothingness, to be too insignificant to be remembered. I wanted to appear innocent; I wanted to be thought of as quiet and harmless; I was worried always about how my very existence was terrifying to others and I did everything in my power to diminish myself, my light, my soul. I wanted so desperately to placate the ignorant. I wanted so badly to appease the assholes who judged me without knowing me that I lost myself in the process. But now? Now, I laugh. Out loud. Now, I don't give a shit. ~ Tahereh Mafi

It's interesting, don't you think, how an imposter, no matter how good it is, can never be as highly valued as the original. ~ Marissa Meyer

life is real,
and pain is real,
but death is an imposter, ~ Mary Oliver

Ladies and gentleman of Florida, this is the real Jeff Ament ... take a very good look because there's an imposter running around ... if someone comes up to you and says he's Jeff Ament and says he wants to take your pot or wants to take you to a strip club, it's probably not him. ~ Eddie Vedder

There are lots of imposters in this earth, and to very first there always comes a second, to every reality there always come a fantasy, and the fantasy wants to come and live the life of the reality ~ Peter Tosh

Sow seed
but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth
let no imposter heap;
Weave robes
let not the idle wear;
Forge arms
in your defence to bear. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

He who pretends to be either painter or engraver without being a master of drawing is an imposter. ~ William Blake

Penny Googled "imposter syndrome."

Informally used to describe people who are unable to internalize their accomplishments despite external evidence of their competence. ~ Mary H.K. Choi

Sooner mayest thou trust thy pocket to a pickpocket than give loyal friendship to the man who boasts of eyes to the heart never mounts in dew! Only when man weeps he should be alone, not because tears are weak, but they should be secret. Tears are akin to prayer,
Pharisees parade prayers, imposters parade tears. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Who am i, really? What does any of it mean? i'm so afraid someday everyone will see that i'm just an imposter, a fake, among all the real and gorgeous godheads.
- ~ Catherynne M Valente

To go straight to the deepest depth, I went for Hegel; what unclear thoughtless flow of words I was to find there! My unlucky star led me from Hegel to Schopenhauer ... Even in Kant there were many things that I could grasp so little that given his general acuity of mind I almost suspected that he was pulling the reader's leg or was even an imposter. ~ Ludwig Boltzmann

Museums are just a lot of lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly imposters. We have infected the pictures in museums with all our stupidities, all our mistakes, all our poverty of spirit. We have turned them into petty and ridiculous things. ~ Pablo Picasso

Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one! ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Many students go through "imposter syndrome" as they try to assimilate into a professional culture. ~ Claude M. Steele

I must cease living the false life of an imposter, and stop worrying about the future or risk sacrificing the joy of living in the moment. I am a seeker. I shall listen to the teaching my blood whispers and ecstatically accept life unfolding in whatever manner my innate material demands. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an imposter. ~ Emile M. Cioran

Something was wrong. I felt a cold shiver. I didn't know what at first. Something was just ... wrong. I thought of Azrael for some reason, the Imposter, in that cowl, pretending he was Batman. It was that same sick feeling, a crazy kind of panic sparking deep beneath the surface, ready to erupt any second but held in check for the moment by the cold shiver getting colder by the minute.
My fingers were so cold ... against the warmth of Bruce's chest ... and then the realization came, right underneath those cold fingertips, I knew what was wrong.
"When did these heal?" I whispered. ~ Chris Dee

If you always feel like an imposter, you work harder, and that makes you better at your job. You've got to keep a level of variation; otherwise, you'll end up talking about nails and beauty products all the time. ~ Edie Campbell

She heard nothing but experienced a sensation that prickled along her spine like a warm touch caressing her skin. Slowly, with the care of prey beneath a predator's survey, she turned her head- and met the gaze of the elegant gentleman lounging at the door.
In her travels, she had seen many a striking and charming man, but none had been as handsome as this- and all had been more charming. This man was a statue in stark black and white, hewn from rugged granite and adolescent dreams. His face wasn't really handsome; his nose was thin and crooked, his eyes heavy lidded, his cheekbones broad, stark and hollowed. But he wielded a quality of power, of toughness, that made Eleanor want to huddle into a shivering, cowardly little ball.
Then he smiled, and she caught her breath in awe. His mouth... his glorious, sensual mouth. His lips were wide, too wide, and broad, too broad. His teeth were white, clean, strong as a wolf's. He looked like a man seldom amused by life, but he was amused by her, and she realized in a rush of mortification that she remained standing on the stool, reading one of his books and lost to the grave realities of her situation. The reality that stated she was an imposter, sent to mollify this man until the real duchess could arrive.
Mollify? Him? Not likely. Nothing would mollify him. Nothing except... well, whatever it was he wanted. And she wasn't fool enough to think she knew what that was.
The immediate reality was that she would someho ~ Christina Dodd

The fundamental thing about my personality is that I think I'm an imposter. ~ Sally Mann

A true friend loves you when you are being kind and when you are PMS-ing all over the place. They may not love what you are doing, or the dragon you are manifesting, but they love you. They know who the true you is, and even in the midst of your living as an imposter to your very self, a friend calls you up and out. A friend sees who you are meant to be and beckons you to rise to the higher version of yourself. ~ Stasi Eldredge

Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit. ~ Edward Young

This lifeless paper, cruel imposter, was the only to take her with him ~ Lauren Kate

Like cubic zirconia, I only look real. I'm an imposter. The fact is, I am not like other people. ~ Augusten Burroughs

There seems to be an unwritten rule, hurtful and at odds with the realities of American culture. It says you aren't supposed to wonder whether as a Black person, a Black woman, you really might be inferior––not quite bright enough, not quite quick enough to do the things you want to do. Though, of course, you do wonder. You're supposed to know you're as good as anyone. And if you don't know, you aren't supposed to admit it. If anyone near you admits it, you're supposed to reassure them quickly so they'll shut up. That sort of talk is embarrassing. Act tough and confident and don't talk about your doubts. If you never deal with them, you may never get rid of them, but no matter. Fake everyone out. Even yourself. ~ Octavia E. Butler

The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that at any moment now they will discover you. It's Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened The Fraud Police.

In my case, I was convinced that there would be a knock on the door, and a man with a clipboard (I don't know why he carried a clipboard, in my head, but he did) would be there, to tell me it was all over, and they had caught up with me, and now I would have to go and get a real job, one that didn't consist of making things up and writing them down, and reading books I wanted to read. ~ Neil Gaiman

At one point I found myself simultaneously cursing him and reaching for the phone to call him and tell him all about how my terrible husband had wronged me, as if there were two versions of him: the imposter who had just hurt me, and the real Tom, who would curse imposter Tom and make it all better. ~ Camille Pagan

When the pope sits on the chamber pot to shit, does he believe in his own infallibility? Does not every imposter occasionally recognize his own hairy, homely humanity? Perhaps not; worn long enough, sometimes the Mask of Authority becomes the man. Even looking in a mirror, he will see the sacred Mask and not his own ordinary human face. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

The human race is an elsewhere race and I am an imposter in a street of imposters. I am nothing and no-one: I was never born. I am a graduate imposter, having applied myself from my earliest years to the study of the development of imposture as practiced in myself and in others around me in street, town, city, country, and on earth. The imposture begins with the first germ of disbelief in being, in self, and this allied to the conviction of the 'unalterable certainty of truth", produces the truth of disbelief, of deception of being, of self, of times, places, peoples, of all time and space. The existence of anything, of anywhere and anytime produces an instant denial only in graduates of imposture; in most others who remain unaware of such a state, particularly in themselves, there may be little or no knowledge of their reality, their nonentity…Complete imposture, I repeat, leads to nothingness in which one inhabits all worlds except the world of oneself. ~ Janet Frame

I still feel very much an imposter in the whole music scene, which I'm quite happy about to be honest. ~ Nick Cave

Those who must control everything fear being vulnerable. Why? Because to be vulnerable opens one up to being shamed. All my life I used up my energies by always having to be guarded. This was a mighty waste of time and energy. The fear was that I would be exposed. And when exposed, all would see that I was flawed and defective as a person - an imposter. Control is a way to ensure that no one can ever shame us again. It involves controlling our own thoughts, expressions, feelings and actions. And it involves attempting to control other people's thoughts, feelings and actions. Control is the ultimate villain in destroying intimacy. We cannot share freely unless we are equal. When one person controls another, equality is ruptured. ~ John Bradshaw

Gannets

I am watching the white gannets
blaze down into the water
with the power of blunt spears
and a stunning accuracy--
even though the sea is riled and boiling
and gray with fog
and the fish
are nowhere to be seen,
they fall, they explode into the water
like white gloves,
then they vanish,
then they climb out again,
from the cliff of the wave,
like white flowers--
and still I think
that nothing in this world moves
but as a positive power--
even the fish, finning down into the current
or collapsing
in the red purse of the beak,
are only interrupted from their own pursuit
of whatever it is
that fills their bellies--
and I say:
life is real,
and pain is real,
but death is an imposter,
and if I could be what once I was,
like the wolf or the bear
standing on the cold shore,
I would still see it--
how the fish simply escape, this time,
or how they slide down into a black fire
for a moment,
then rise from the water inseparable
from the gannets' wings. ~ Mary Oliver

I have a very vibrant imposter syndrome that goes on throughout most of my life, but nothing more than when someone has to put a hat on me or some kind of sash and go, 'We're giving you this certificate.' ~ Robin Ince

I walked into Aquagrill and began my experience of trying to help a new restaurant get off the ground. The owners were talented and lovely, but I felt like an imposter in all of our pre-opening meetings. I wanted to earn a living as an actor, and I wanted to pay off my student loans and maybe get some health insurance. ~ Amy Poehler

I am drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness - and even I am not strong enough to deny the routine, the rote, to simplify. No, I go plodding on, afraid that the blank hell in back of my eyes will break through, spewing forth like a dark pestilence; afraid that the disease which eats away the pith of my body with merciless impersonality will break forth in obvious sores and warts, screaming Traitor, sinner, imposter. ~ Sylvia Plath

Technology, for instance, has become a kind of imposter for connection, making us believe we're connected when we're really not - at least not in the ways we need to be. ~ Brene Brown