Archive

Quotes

If I had the use of my body I would throw it out of the window.

—Samuel Beckett, 1951

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, c. 1947

The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body.

—Anaïs Nin, 1935

O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!

—William Shakespeare, c. 1596

All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.

—Fran Lebowitz, 1978

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

—Kate Moss, 2009

To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.

—Simone de Beauvoir, 1949

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

—Walt Whitman, 1855

What are men anyway but balloons on legs, a lot of blown-up bladders?

—Gaius Petronius Arbiter, c. 64

There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.

—Karl Marx, 1860

Very shy people don’t even want to take up the space that their body actually takes up.

—Andy Warhol, 1975

One’s body, hair, and skin are a gift from one’s parents—do not dare to allow them to be harmed.

—Classic of Filial Piety, c. 200 BC

It hurts to watch the fluency of a body acclimated to its shackling.

—Leslie Jamison, 2014