Imposter Quotes

You see, cuckoos are parasites. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the egg hatches, the baby cuckoo pushes the other baby birds out of the nest. The poor parent birds work themselves to death trying to find enough food to feed the enormous cuckoo child who has murdered their babies and taken their places." "Enormous?" said Jace. "Did you just call me fat?" "It was an analogy." "I am not fat.

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

A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices

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.

Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.

We shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? Do we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?

this lifeless paper, cruel imposter, was the only to take her with him

The people who make art their business are mostly imposters.

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

In yet another commercial, Oprah somberly says, “Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be.” This is a popular notion, the idea that the fat among us are carrying a thin woman inside. Each time I see this particular commercial, I think, I ate that thin woman and she was delicious but unsatisfying. And then I think about how fucked up it is to promote this idea that our truest selves are thin women hiding in our fat bodies like imposters, usurpers, illegitimates.

It is because we are all imposters that we endure each other.

Everyone wears masks. They come in all different shapes and sizes. The only problem with trying one on - is that it fits. How easily we fall into the trap that we don't have to be who we really are. How easily we convince ourselves that we need to cover up what we were born to be. It's a tragedy - that fear keeps us from our destiny. It's hell - when the person you were created to be - is covered up by some cheap imposter.

Were you expecting me to throw myself at you? Would you have then said a dozen pretty things about my eyes or hair?" "No, it would have been, 'Get off me, you imposter, and tell me what you did with Emily.

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.

Actions are not impostions on who we are, but are expressions of who we are. They come out of our heart and the inner realities it supervises and interacts with

The defense mechanisms of The Imposter are: sarcasm, name-dropping, self-righteousness, the need to impress others and the need for others' approval.

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]

We are wrestling with some form of imposter syndrome, unable to internalize and appreciate our own accomplishments

This is how we were meant for each other. How we make our living. The lives of frustrated poets and imposters. This, too, how the love works and then doesn't: a mutual spectacle of imagination.

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.

The real tragedy is, of course, by always looking outward, by focusing so intently on the other person's experience, we lose touch with our own. It's as if we live our entire life pretending to be ourselves, as imposters impersonating ourselves, rather than feeling this is really me, this is who I am.

He looked so much like me, I could tell that he saw it, too, we shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? DO we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?

Everyone wears masks.They come in all different shapes and sizes.The only problem with trying one on is that it fits. How easily we fall into the trap that we don’t have to be who we really are.How easily we convince ourselves that we need to cover up what we were born to be.It’s a tragedy that fear keeps us from our destiny.It’s hell when the person you were created to be is covered up by some cheap imposter

that imposter or phony feeling at work or school rarely has anything to do with our abilities, but has more to do with that fearful voice inside of us that scolds and asks, “Who do you think you are?

Queer identities aren't binary states. There's no such thing as 'imposter queers' because there's no one right way to be queer.

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.

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.

Imposter syndrome” wasn’t coined as a term until the 1970s, but it’s safe to assume women have always felt it: that nagging feeling that, even after you’ve just done something great, maybe you actually don’t deserve the praise.

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.

You have heard of imposter syndrome? Everything in me screamed I am a fake! I do not belong here! Even after four thousand years of godhood, six months of mortal life had convinced me that I wasn’t a true deity.

I feel a deep sense of responsibility when I awaken a submissive. I know the imposters who prowl hoping to pounce on the untried.

I'll let you in on a little secret, Garry: everything is history. By the time you notice it, it's already happened. That famous imposter, "the present," disappears in the cognitive gap. Mind the gap!

His Infernal Majesty leans towards me confidingly. “You have imposter syndrome,” He says, “but paradoxically, that’s often a sign of competence. Only people who understand their work well enough to be intimidated by it can be terrified by their own ignorance. It’s the opposite of Dunning-Kruger syndrome, where the miserably incompetent think they’re on top of the job because they don’t understand it.

It is not possible to be seduced by the lure of ego-gratification or intimidated by the tyranny of imposters when we know that we are as the angels. We are loved beyond comprehension. So, we must claim our rightful inheritance and live with the confidence of protection.

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.

Penny Googled “imposter syndrome.” Informally used to describe people who are unable to internalize their accomplishments despite external evidence of their competence.

Citizens of Luna, I ask that you stop what you’re doing to listen to this message. My name is Selene Blackburn. I am the daughter of the late Queen Channary, niece to Princess Levana, and the rightful heir to Luna’s throne. You were told that I died thirteen years ago in a nursery fire, but the truth is that my aunt, Levana, did try to kill me, but I was rescued and taken to Earth. There, I have been raised and protected in preparation for the time when I would return to Luna and reclaim my birthright. In my absence, Levana has enslaved you. She takes your sons and turns them into monsters. She takes your shell infants and slaughters them. She lets you go hungry, while the people in Artemisia gorge themselves on rich foods and delicacies. But Levana’s rule is coming to an end. I have returned and I am here to take back what’s mine. Soon, Levana is going to marry Emperor Kaito of Earth and be crowned the empress of the Eastern Commonwealth, an honor that could not be given to anyone less deserving. I refuse to allow Levana to extend her tyranny. I will not stand aside while my aunt enslaves and abuses my people here on Luna, and wages a war across Earth. Which is why, before an Earthen crown can be placed on Levana’s head, I will bring an army to the gates of Artemisia. I ask that you, citizens of Luna, be that army. You have the power to fight against Levana and the people that oppress you. Beginning now, tonight, I urge you to join me in rebelling against this regime. No longer will we obey her curfews or forgo our rights to meet and talk and be heard. No longer will we give up our children to become her disposable guards and soldiers. No longer will we slave away growing food and raising wildlife, only to see it shipped off to Artemisia while our children starve around us. No longer will we build weapons for Levana’s war. Instead, we will take them for ourselves, for our war. Become my army. Stand up and reclaim your homes from the guards who abuse and terrorize you. Send a message to Levana that you will no longer be controlled by fear and manipulation. And upon the commencement of the royal coronation, I ask that all able-bodied citizens join me in a march against Artemisia and the queen’s palace. Together we will guarantee a better future for Luna. A future without oppression. A future in which any Lunar, no matter the sector they live in or the family they were born to, can achieve their ambitions and live without fear of unjust persecution or a lifetime of slavery. I understand that I am asking you to risk your lives. Levana’s thaumaturges are powerful, her guards are skilled, her soldiers are brutal. But if we join together, we can be invincible. They can’t control us all. With the people united into one army, we will surround the capital city and overthrow the imposter who sits on my throne. Help me. Fight for me. And I will be the first ruler in the history of Luna who will also fight for you.

Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things. On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.” And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.” And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.

... I succeeded at math, at least by the usual evaluation criteria: grades. Yet while I might have earned top marks in geometry and algebra, I was merely following memorized rules, plugging in numbers and dutifully crunching out answers by rote, with no real grasp of the significance of what I was doing or its usefulness in solving real-world problems. Worse, I knew the depth of my own ignorance, and I lived in fear that my lack of comprehension would be discovered and I would be exposed as an academic fraud -- psychologists call this "imposter syndrome".

The desert sorted the faithful from imposters, but the city did not seem to know the difference, and actually rewarded the impure.

Una delle peggiori necessità imposte dall’odio e dalla collera consiste nel calunniare quanto più è possibile l’oggetto odiato; e questo per pura e semplice coerenza.

A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.

You just have too little faith, Estella...in yourself and in God. Don't assume that because He didn't give you one thing you wanted, He isn't ready to give you something else you might want more. He knows our desires better than we do, after all.

If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat these two imposters just the same ... If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you ... If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run ... you'll be a Man, my son!

WHEN WAS IT THAT I BECAME A VOYEUR in their midst? I was the perfect witness, an unsuspected anthropologist disguised within the body of a young girl, surrounded by other young girls who were part of the family. Yet I was a cuckoo in the nest, an imposter who listened and observed, hoarding and collecting information.

Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which individuals doubt themselves and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. Last year my friend Ingrid told me I had it. I had just told her that I didn’t feel like I belonged at my previous bookstore job. I told her that I didn’t really get 1984 and that I hate poetry — so I wasn’t sure if working at a bookstore was right for me. She told me, ‘You have a classic case of impostor syndrome.’ I told her that I’m not sure that’s a real syndrome. I said I wonder if everyone’s an impostor. What if beneath every lawyer’s suit and every stay-at-home-parent’s apron, everyone is just a baby who doesn’t know what they’re doing?

It's so hard, because so much of the time when I'm here, what you're seeing is not what I'm seeing. I feel like such an imposter. I'm out in my ocean, and you don't know that. And I can't tell you what's going on. Sometimes I'd really like to tell you, but I can't. I'm gone.

Expand! You are not small. Your Foremothers did not do what they did so you could occupy small!

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.

It is difficult to reconstruct an emotion. At times it is difficult even to admit to one. I have practiced long and hard at denying entry to such twin imposters as triumph and disaster, or love and hate, but sometimes the barriers are breached.

Ago era Robb, Bran, Rickon, sua madre, suo padre e anche Sansa. Ago erano le pareti grigie di Grande Inverno e le risate della sua gente. Ago erano le nevicate estive, le storie della vecchia Nan, era l'albero-cuore con le sue foglie rosse e il terribile volto scolpito nel legno, era l'odore caldo di terra dei giardini coperti, il vento del Nord che faceva sbattere le imposte della sua stanza. Ago era il sorriso di Jon Snow. "Mi spettinava e mi chiamava sorellina" ricordò, e d'un tratto le si riempirono gli occhi di lacrime.

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

He didn’t have the imagination to orchestrate illicit liaisons, nor the cunning to do anything sly. He had all the subtlety of a puppy, all the capacity for guile of a newborn baby.

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.

Capgras syndrome is a condition in which sufferers become convinced that those they know well are imposters. In Klüver-Bucy syndrome the victim develops urges to eat and fornicate indiscriminately (to the understandable dismay of loved ones).46 Perhaps the most bizarre of all is Cotard delusion, in which the sufferer believes he is dead and cannot be convinced otherwise.47

Jonah, I hear that you, Milly, and Aubrey are doing well, and I am glad. Truly. I bear you no ill will, and while I suppose it is fanciful to imagine that you and your “cousins” might reciprocate that sentiment, I hope it is the case. From one imposter to another, I’d like to give you some words of advice: keep your parents far away from Anders Story’s new venture. I have a strong suspicion that it will one day, as they say, go up in flames. Family first, always. P.

Denial protected us, screening out certain experiences & feelings until we grew strong enough to relate to them...Yet it also dropped a curtain over our experience, obscuring it, leaving us with a sense of missing pieces. For instance, when we achieved something, we felt like an imposter. Or, though we had a relationship with a significant other, we often felt alone and unrelated to anyone.

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.

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.

This idea that you’re undeserving, a fraud—that you’re not as smart or talented or “together” as people might think makes you an “imposter” and therefore unqualified in whatever it is you want to do and someday you’re going to be found out. By whom? The imposter police? You’re not an imposter, you’re a human being.

Another problem with the role-self is that it doesn’t have its own source of energy. It has to steal vitality from the true self. Playing a role is much more tiring than just being yourself because it takes a huge effort to be something you are not. And because it’s made-up, the role-self is insecure and afraid of being revealed as an imposter. Playing a role-self usually doesn’t work in the long run because it can never completely hide people’s true inclinations. Sooner or later, their genuine needs will bubble up. When people decide to stop playing the role and live more from their true self, they can go forward with more lightness and vitality.

Life is full of choices, ma'am. Most we live once, then move on and forget. But others" - he narrowed his eyes - "we live a thousand times over and remember for the rest of our days. What's impostant is knowin' how to tell 'em apart. And then decidin' if you's willin' to pay the price. 'Cause choices...they always come at a price.

While we don’t select friends because they might help us advance our careers, here’s the dirty capitalist truth: friendship has been the source of some of our biggest professional leaps. We are women for whom work is a huge part of our identity, in a way that wasn’t true for either of our mothers. Friends are how we’ve figured out the salary we deserve and how to negotiate for it. They’ve been a source of solace when our bosses shortchanged us, and they’ve been the inspiration to keep going when, having moved up, we become the bosses and feel like imposters.

I'm no pessimist. I don't loathe art because I couldn't live without devoting all my time to it. I love it as the only end of my life. Everything I do connected with it gives me intense pleasure. But still, I don't see why the whole world should be taken up with art, demand its credentials, and on that subject give free rein to its own stupidity. Museums are just a lot of lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly imposters.' -Picasso

This happens all the time. Anyone who has lost somebody they love has experienced it—the head in the crowd on a busy street, the person at the grocery store who moves just like her. The rush to catch up, so relieved that she is actually still alive . . . Only to be crushed when the imposter turns around and the face is wrong. The eyes. The lips.

When you're way too real, fake people be like: "You're a trip. I want somebody with real game (lies).

It's easy for them to have opinions, and to express them with confidence. They don't worry about appearing ignorant or conceited.

Imagine Sir Walter Scott, but if every woman in English history dabbled in witchcraft or murder.

Morrigan frowned. She sometimes felt that her true knack had nothing to do with being a Wundersmith. That it was, in fact, her remarkable ability to assume the worst. It came, of course, from a lifetime of believing she was cursed, and it seemed to be stitched into the very fabric of her being, even now. Telling her not to worry about bad things happening around her was like telling Hawthorne not to get excited about dragons, or Jupiter not to be ginger.

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.

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.

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.

I am in love with Joshua Miles, and it’s bringing me to life. It’s killing me. It’s making me crazy. I think I love that part, too. It twists and loops around us, tying us to one another. It steals my thoughts and makes me think of him. It steals my hands and makes me touch his skin. It’s brutal and kind and sharp and soft and warm and cold and freeing and imprisoning. It’s an incognito imposter taking over my world, spreading itself like a disease.

Absolutely everybody wants to be liked (law 1). Everyone feels different inside (less confident, less able, etc.) from how they infer other people to feel (law 2). Few honest and courageous people who have achieved anything of real value in life do not feel a fraud much of the time (law 3). Acceptance of these three 'laws' alone would save an awful lot of people an awful lot of grief!

Weddings are friendship deal breakers if the friendship is weak. There are too many favors, too many tasks, too much required devotion and Aqua Net for imposters like me. I tried to make eye contact with Francine, to give her a knowing good-bye smile like a ghost of a loved one in a movie. It was no usue, I decided to cut my final pink wire. There would be no more yearly "happy birthdays" and certainly no more bonding with the girl in the duct tape dress. That ship had sailed.

When it shall be desired to enlighten man, let him always have truth laid before him. Instead of kindling his imagination by the idea of those pretended goods that a future state has in reserve for him, let him be solaced, let him be succoured; or, at least, let him be permitted to enjoy the fruit of his labour; let not his substance be ravaged from him by cruel imposts; let him not be discouraged from work, by finding all his labour inadequate to support his existence, let him not be driven into that idleness that will surely lead him on to crime: let him consider his present existence, without carrying his views to that which may attend him after his death: let his industry be excited; let his talents be rewarded; let him be rendered active, laborious, beneficent, and virtuous, in the world he inhabits; let it be shown to him that his actions are capable of having an influence over his fellow men, but not on those imaginary beings located in an ideal world.

As soon as a challenge was overcome, it creased to be a challenge, becoming the expected and ordinary rather than something I had achieved with difficulty, and could, therefore, be justly proud of. I could not own my own triumphs, nor give myself credit for them.

I feel successful 3–4 days a month. The other days I feel like I’m barely accomplishing the minimum or that I’m a loser. I have imposter syndrome so even when I get compliments they are difficult to take and I just feel like I’m a bigger fraud than before. I feel the worst when I get so paralyzed by fear that I end up huddled in bed and fall further and further behind. To make myself feel more successful I spend real time with my daughter every day, even if it’s just huddling under a blanket and watching Doctor Who reruns on TV. I also try to remind myself that people like Dorothy Parker and Hunter S. Thompson struggled as well, and that this struggle might make me stronger, if it doesn’t first destroy me.

It's not the gender that matters, you know that. It's the soul inside that counts.

It took almost an hour to get to Bernard's house. Somewhere in Long Island. Beautiful trees. I'd never seen such beautiful trees. Out in the driveway, one of Bernard's nephews had slit his pants legs to the knee and was running up and down in the sunlight, watching how they caught the breeze. Inside the house, people stood around a table piled with food talking about Isaac. I knew I didn't belong there. I felt like a fool and an imposter. I stood by the window, making myself invisible. I didn't think it would be so painful. And yet. To hear people talk about the son I'd only been able to imagine as if he were as familiar to them as a relative was almost too much to bear. So I slipped away. I wandered through the rooms of Isaac's half-brother's house. I thought: My son walked on this carpet. I came to a guest bedroom. I thought: From time to time, he slept in this bed. This very bed! His head on these pillows. I lay down. I was tired, I couldn't help myself. The pillow sank under my cheek. And as he lay here, I thought, he looked out this very window, at that very tree.

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.

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.

I am becoming a tyrant, threatening in place of convincing. Unstable instead of steadying. I am suited to the shadows, to the art of knives and bloodshed and coups, to poisoned words and poisoned cups. I never expected to rise so high as the throne. And I fear that I am utterly unsuited to the task.

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.

I think what I really want is to treat life less like a war. Wouldn't we have less Imposter Syndrome and fewer actual imposters if we just lowered our standards a bit? Modern productivity dogma encourages us to act fast, and milk our exceptionalism for all it's worth. Under that kind of pressure, perhaps the truest rebellion is to embrace our ordinariness. In everyday life, if we could not only tolerate the discomfort, but wholeheartedly embrace our own lack of expertise, then we might have a far better chance of showing others the same grace. Then perhaps life might feel, at the very least, less agitating, at most, we might even find peace. How’s this? Let’s stoop below average at 50% of all we do. We’ll relish it, the commonness. Next time we have a question, let’s hold our for as long as we humanly can before googling the answer. It’ll be erotic, like edging before a climax. It’s quite nice, I am learning, just to wonder indefinitely. To never have certain answers. To sit down, be humble, and not even dare to know

Well, I’ve got news for you, Lucian. No one feels worthy. Everyone feels like an imposter. It doesn’t matter what family you come from, your net worth, or how many powerful friends owe you favors. None of that is going to make you feel like you deserve to be here.” “Everyone? I find that hard to believe.” “The ones who don’t? The ones who think they deserve it all? Those are the ones you have to watch out for. Those are the ones who inflict the real damage. They’re the ones who don’t spend years in therapy trying to better themselves. They’re the ones who don’t bother asking themselves if they’re the good guy or the bad guy.

It is a curious thought that the earliest description of the steam-engine in antiquity describes its use for the magic opening of the temple doors, when the priests lit the fires on the altars, to deceive the populace into ascribing to a deity what was the work of the engineer. In much the same way today, the almost boundless fecundity of the creative scientific discoveries and inventions of the age are being appropriated for the purpose of the mysterious opening of doors into the holy of holies of the temples of mammon by a hierarchy of imposters and humbugs, whom it is the first task of a sane civilization to expose and clear out.

Internalized ableism—the insidious belief that I would be a better person if I were not disabled—makes me feel like an imposter as a mother. Many of my friends with disabilities worry that they should not be parents; those who already are parents fear that their physical capacities negatively affect their children. It’s much easier to ignore my insecurities in professional or academic settings—to fake it until I make it, to go through the motions until I’m more confident in them. But how can I brazen my way through parenting? Talking myself out of my deepest fears is more difficult when I want, so primally, to be able to lift my son.

Novelist and essayist George Orwell wrote the masterpiece 1984 about a dystopian future. But he was also a shrewd observer of political life in democracies. He warned about the political choices people make regularly in an elective system of government. “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.”4 The progressive message continues to be “hand us more power.” What they are asking us to do is ignore history—including their history—in how such power is actually exercised. We must ask ourselves: Why trust someone with more power when you cannot even trust them with the little they already have?

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.

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.

But Percy didn’t feel powerful. The more heroic stuff he did, the more he realized how limited he was. He felt like a fraud. I’m not as great as you think, he wanted to warn his friends. His failures, like tonight, seemed to prove it. Maybe that’s why he had started to fear suffocation. It wasn’t so much drowning in the earth or the sea, but the feeling that he was sinking into too many expectations, literally getting in over his head.

Indictment for blasphemy: That ... the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra's fables, in profane allusion to Esop's Fables; That he railed on Christ, saying, he had learned magick in Egypt, which enabled him to perform those pranks which were called miracles: That he called the New Testament the history of the imposter Christ; That he said Moses was the better artist and the better politician; and he preferred Muhammad to Christ: That the Holy Scriptures were stuffed with such madness, nonsense, and contradictions, that he admired the stupidity of the world in being so long deluded by them: That he rejected the mystery of the Trinity as unworthy of refutation; and scoffed at the incarnation of Christ.

You're afraid that you suck. And - at least if you never try - no one (especially you) will be able to confirm that. Spoiler alert: This kind of thought doesn't come from an underachiever who's not good at anything. This kind of thought comes from a perfectionist. And truthfully? It's lame. There's so much incredible potential in you. But you're going to squander it because trying may or may not confirm that you're not as good as you thought you were. Stop being so hard on yourself!

That’s just the way life is. It can be exquisite, cruel, frequently wacky, but above all utterly, utterly random. Those twin imposters in the bell-fringed jester hats, Justice and Fairness—they aren’t constants of the natural order like entropy or the periodic table. They’re completely alien notions to the way things happen out there in the human rain forest. Justice and Fairness are the things we’re supposed to contribute back to the world for giving us the gift of life—not birthrights we should expect and demand every second of the day. What do you say we drop the intellectual cowardice? There is no fate, and there is no safety net. I’m not saying God doesn’t exist. I believe in God. But he’s not a micromanager, so stop asking Him to drop the crisis in Rwanda and help you find your wallet. Life is a long, lonely journey down a day-in-day-out lard-trail of dropped tacos. Mop it up, not for yourself, but for the guy behind you who’s too busy trying not to drop his own tacos to make sure he doesn’t slip and fall on your mistakes. So don’t speed and weave in traffic; other people have babies in their cars. Don’t litter. Don’t begrudge the poor because they have a fucking food stamp. Don’t be rude to overwhelmed minimum-wage sales clerks, especially teenagers—they have that job because they don’t have a clue. You didn’t either at that age. Be understanding with them. Share your clues. Remember that your sense of humor is inversely proportional to your intolerance. Stop and think on Veterans Day. And don’t forget to vote. That is, unless you send money to TV preachers, have more than a passing interest in alien abduction or recentlypurchased a fish on a wall plaque that sings ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy.’ In that case, the polls are a scary place! Under every ballot box is a trapdoor chute to an extraterrestrial escape pod filled with dental tools and squeaking, masturbating little green men from the Devil Star. In conclusion, Class of Ninety-seven, keep your chins up, grab your mops and get in the game. You don’t have to make a pile of money or change society. Just clean up after yourselves without complaining. And, above all, please stop and appreciate the days when the tacos don’t fall, and give heartfelt thanks to whomever you pray to….

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 any threat she made. “I mean really, Noah. You are just about seven hundred years old. One would think you could at least act like it.

I reviewed in thought the modern era of raps and apparitions, beginning with the knockings of 1848, at the hamlet of Hydesville, N.Y., and ending with grotesque phenomena at Cambridge, Mass.; I evoked the anklebones and other anatomical castanets of the Fox sisters (as described by the sages of the University of Buffalo ); the mysteriously uniform type of delicate adolescent in bleak Epworth or Tedworth, radiating the same disturbances as in old Peru; solemn Victorian orgies with roses falling and accordions floating to the strains of sacred music; professional imposters regurgitating moist cheesecloth; Mr. Duncan, a lady medium's dignified husband, who, when asked if he would submit to a search, excused himself on the ground of soiled underwear; old Alfred Russel Wallace, the naive naturalist, refusing to believe that the white form with bare feet and unperforated earlobes before him, at a private pandemonium in Boston, could be prim Miss Cook whom he had just seen asleep, in her curtained corner, all dressed in black, wearing laced-up boots and earrings; two other investigators, small, puny, but reasonably intelligent and active men, closely clinging with arms and legs about Eusapia, a large, plump elderly female reeking of garlic, who still managed to fool them; and the skeptical and embarrassed magician, instructed by charming young Margery's "control" not to get lost in the bathrobe's lining but to follow up the left stocking until he reached the bare thigh - upon the warm skin of which he felt a "teleplastic" mass that appeared to the touch uncommonly like cold, uncooked liver. ("The Vane Sisters")

I què em caldria fer? Procurar-me un patró molt poderós, Le Bret, i, com una heura obscura que puja una paret, grimpar amb enganys, i a més, llepar-li les rajoles, veient que m'han clavat a la terra les soles? No, senyor!, que un banquer m'estimi per pallasso llepaculs que dedica sonets? No!, passo, passo! Afalagar, adular les passes d’un ministre per si m'adreça un gest que no sigui sinistre? No senyor! Empassar-me per esmorzar un gripau? Tenir el ventre gastat d'arrossegar-me al cau? I la pell dels genolls de nit i dia bruta? Ordenar a l'espinada que doblegui la ruta? No, senyor! Ser una estora als peus d’un idiota? Agitar l'encenser davant d'una carota? No, senyor! O saltar de faldilla en faldilla? O ser un gran homenet enmig d'una quadrilla? Potser passar la mar amb madrigals per rem i a la vela sospirs de vella? No fotem! No, senyor! Potser anar fins a can Seyrecet fer-me editar els versos, a quin preu? No, Le Bret! O fer-me elegir Papa en els pobres concilis formats per uns imbècils que van destil·lant bilis? No, senyor! Treballar perquè aplaudeixin altres un sonet que hagi fet, en lloc d'escriure’n d’altres? Trobar belles orelles de ruc, llargues i tristes? O viure amb l'objectiu de sortir a les revistes? Estar terroritzat com un que quasi es mor quan va veure el seu nom escrit al Mercure d'or? Calcular, esporuguit davant d'un anatema? Anar a fer una visita en comptes d’un poema? Relligar els aprovats o fer-me presentar? No, senyor! No, senyor!... Més m’estimo cantar, entrar, sortir, ballar, ser sol, sentir-me viure, mirar amb el cap ben alt, parlar fort, i ser lliure; anar amb el barret tort, contemplar l'univers, per un sí o per un no, barallar-me... o fer un vers! No tenir gens en compte la fama i la fortuna, poder, amb el pensament, enfilar-me a la lluna! No haver d'escriure un mot si de mi no ha sortit, i molt modestament poder-me dir: Petit, estigues satisfet de flors i fruits i fulles si és al teu jardí que en culls o bé n’esbulles! I si arriba el triomf, quan l'atzar ho ha dispost, no haver d'estar obligat a satisfer un impost, davant de mi mateix reconèixer-me els mèrits, no haver de pagar mai per uns favors pretèrits, i, encara que no sigui poderós el meu vol, que no arribi gens lluny, saber que hi he anat sol! Acte segon. Escena VIII.

The first chapter of Matthew begins with giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ; and in the third chapter of Luke there is also given a genealogy of Jesus Christ. Did these two agree, it would not prove the genealogy to be true, because it might nevertheless be a fabrication; but as they contradict each other in every particular, it proves falsehood absolutely. If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood; and if Luke speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood: and as there is no authority for believing one more than the other, there is no authority for believing either; and if they cannot be believed even in the very first thing they say, and set out to prove, they are not entitled to be believed in any thing they say afterwards. Truth is an uniform thing; and as to inspiration and revelation, were we to admit it, it is impossible to suppose it can be contradictory. Either then the men called apostles were imposters, or the books ascribed to them have been written by other persons, and fathered upon them, as is the case in the Old Testament. Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehood between them (as these two accounts show they do) in the very commencement of their history of Jesus Christ, and of who, and of what he was, what authority (as I have before asked) is there left for believing the strange things they tell us afterwards? If they cannot be believed in their account of his natural genealogy, how are we to believe them when they tell us he was the son of God, begotten by a ghost; and that an angel announced this in secret to his mother? If they lied in one genealogy, why are we to believe them in the other? If his natural genealogy be manufactured, which it certainly is, why are we not to suppose that his celestial genealogy is manufactured also, and that the whole is fabulous? Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness upon the belief of a story naturally impossible, repugnant to every idea of decency, and related by persons already detected of falsehood?

One article on reproductive strategies was titled "Sneaky Fuckers." Kya laughed. As is well known, the article began, in nature, usually the males with the most prominent secondary sexual characteristics, such as the biggest antlers, deepest voices, broadest chests, and superior knowledge secure the best territories because they have fended off weaker males. The females choose to mate with these imposing alphas and are thereby inseminated with the best DNA around, which is passed on to the female's offspring- one of the most powerful phenomena in the adaptation and continuance of life. Plus, the females get the best territory for their young. However, some stunted males, not strong, adorned, or smart enough to hold good territories, possess bags of tricks to fool the females. They parade their smaller forms around in pumped-up postures or shout frequently- even if in shrill voices. By relying on pretense and false signals, they manage to grab a copulation here or there. Pint-sized male bullfrogs, the author wrote, hunker down in the grass and hide near an alpha male who is croaking with great gusto to call in mates. When several females are attracted to his strong vocals at the same time, and the alpha is busy copulating with one, the weaker male leaps in and mates one of the others. The imposter males were referred to as "sneaky fuckers." Kya remembered, those many years ago, Ma warning her older sisters about young men who overrevved their rusted-out pickups or drove jalopies around with radios blaring. "Unworthy boys make a lot of noise," Ma had said. She read a consolation for females. Nature is audacious enough to ensure that the males who send out dishonest signals or go from one female to the next almost always end up alone. Another article delved into the wild rivalries between sperm. Across most life-forms, males compete to inseminate females. Male lions occasionally fight to the death; rival bull elephants lock tusks and demolish the ground beneath their feet as they tear at each other's flesh. Though very ritualized, the conflicts can still end in mutilations. To avoid such injuries, inseminators of some species compete in less violent, more creative methods. Insects, the most imaginative. The penis of the male damselfly is equipped with a small scoop, which removes sperm ejected by a previous opponent before he supplies his own. Kya dropped the journal on her lap, her mind drifting with the clouds. Some female insects eat their mates, overstressed mammal mothers abandon their young, many males design risky or shifty ways to outsperm their competitors. Nothing seemed too indecorous as long as the tick and the tock of life carried on. She knew this was not a dark side to Nature, just inventive ways to endure against all odds. Surely for humans there was more.