First Person Quotes:

Elvis was the first person in music that I really identified with.

- Cher

topic: Firsts, Persons, First Person

I actually am always a music first person

- Duncan Sheik

topic: Firsts, Persons, First Person

If I ever thought I wasn't the right guy for the job, I'd be the first person to fire myself.

- Andrew Mason

topic: Jobs, Fire, Guy, First Person, Right Guy

I write in the first person because I have always wanted to make my life more interesting than it was.

- Diane Wakoski

source: Diane Wakoski (1974). “Trilogy: Coins & Coffins: Discrepancies and Apparitions; The George Washington Poems”

topic: Writing, Interesting, Firsts, First Person

Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.

- James Lee Burke

topic: Voice, Narrators, Matter, First Person

It's amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.

- Doris Lessing

source: "Doris Lessing, The Art of Fiction No. 102". Interview with Thomas Frick, The Paris Review, Issue 106, www.theparisreview.org. Spring 1988.

topic: Writing, Different, Firsts, First Person

I think first-person narrators should be complex, because otherwise the first-person is too shallow and predictable. I like a first-person narrator who can't totally be trusted.

- Rick Moody

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Thinking, Narrators, Firsts, First Person

Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Positive, Important Work, Social Good

Everyone eventually winds up writing about themselves - the problem is finding the best way to go about it. To write about oneself literally, in the first person, presumes a more interesting personal life and philosophy than most rock lyricists possess. John Lennon was good for one great album based on musical direct address, 'Plastic Ono Band.

- Jon Landau

topic: Philosophy, Writing, Rocks, First Person, Lyricists

Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it's a process. It's often not cool to be the person who puts themselves out there.

- Emma Watson

topic: Badass, Confusing, Becoming, Watson, Eager Beaver

Perfume is a form of writing, an ink, a choice made in the first person, the dot on the i, a weapon, a courteous gesture, part of the instant, a consequence.

- Serge Lutens

topic: Writing, Choices, Gestures, Choices Made, First Person

I want to be the person that is the first person there and the last person to leave. That's who I want to be, because I think the road to success is through commitment, and through the strength to drive through that commitment when it gets hard. And it is going to get hard and you're going to want to quit sometimes, but it'll be colored by who you are, and more by who you want to be.

- Will Smith

topic: Commitment, Thinking, Want, First Person

In the first person, the readers feel smart, like it's them solving the case.

- Patricia Cornwell

topic: Smart, Firsts, Cases, First Person

No great president in the USA has been primarily a me-first person.

- Tim Kaine

source: Source: www.chicagotribune.com

topic: Usa, President, Firsts, First Person

Alexander Graham Bell was the first person to ever sarcastically say hello. Hellooo, I invented the telephone!

- Andy Kindler

topic: Bells, Telephones, Firsts, First Person, Graham Bell

I'm very comfortable writing in the first person; it dives into the character in a way that's difficult if you're writing in the third person.

- Patti Davis

topic: Character, Writing, Way, Third Person, First Person

First-person narrators is the way I know how to write a book with the greatest power and chance of artistic success.

- Anne Rice

topic: Book, Writing, Narrators, First Person

The first-person viewpoint is more enjoyable to write, because it lets me meander more freely, and it can reveal more of the character's self-delusions. Really all the advantages are with first-person, so I'm sorry I don't get to pick and choose.

- Anne Tyler

source: Source: www.barnesandnoble.com

topic: Sorry, Character, Writing, First Person, Self Delusion

Contemplation is not and cannot be a function of this external self. There is an irreducible opposition between the deep transcendent self that awakens only in contemplation, and the superficial, external self which we commonly identify with the first person singular.

- Thomas Merton

source: Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.7, New Directions Publishing

topic: Self, Firsts, Superficial, First Person, Transcendent

The first book we fall in love with shapes us every bit as much as the first person we fall in love with...

- Laura Miller

topic: Falling In Love, Book, Shapes, First Person

When I first got back from the war, I said, 'I'm gonna write the Great American Novel about the Vietnam War.' So I sat down and wrote 1,700 pages of sheer psychotherapy drivel. It was first person, and there would be pages about wet socks and cold feet.

- Karl Marlantes

source: "A Vietnam Epic Uncovers Old Wounds: An Interview with Karl Marlantes". Interview with Evan James, www.motherjones.com. April 30, 2010.

topic: War, Writing, Feet, Cold Feet, First Person

I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
 on a day you’re feeling good. 
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
 on a day you’re feeling bad.
 I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty
 could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.

- Andrea Gibson

topic: Glasses, Mirrors, Feel Good, First Person, Feeling Bad

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

- John C. Maxwell

topic: Leadership, Trying, Needs, First Person

Marrying the first person who offers you a decent position in society. Love can wait.

- Paulo Coelho

topic: Life, Waiting, Firsts, First Person

I'm a strong believer in telling stories through a limited but very tight third person point of view. I have used other techniques during my career, like the first person or the omniscient view point, but I actually hate the omniscient viewpoint. None of us have an omniscient viewpoint; we are alone in the universe. We hear what we can hear... we are very limited. If a plane crashes behind you I would see it but you wouldn't. That's the way we perceive the world and I want to put my readers in the head of my characters.

- George R. R. Martin

topic: Strong, Hate, Writing, First Person, Plane Crashes

I will now claim - until dispossesed - that I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to literature. ... The early machine was full of caprices, full of defects- devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After a year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought I would give it to Howells. ... He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.

- Mark Twain

topic: Character, Home, Two, First Person, Devilish

Everyone is interesting except the narrator in a first-person story.

- William Kennedy

topic: Interesting, Crafts, Firsts, First Person

A player who conjugates a verb in the first-person singular cannot be part of the squad. He has to conjugate the verb in the first-person plural. We.

- Wanderlei Silva

topic: Sports, Player, Squad, Great Sports, First Person

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.

- William Zinsser

topic: Writing, People, Ego, Urges, First Person

A player who conjugates a verb in the first person singular cannot be part of the squad, he has to conjugate the verb in the first person plural. We. We want to conquer. We are going to conquer. Using the word I when you're in a group makes things complicated.

- Vanderlei Luxemburgo

topic: Sports, Player, Squad, Great Sports, First Person

Yoga began with the first person wanting to be healthy and happy all the time.

- Swami Satchidananda

topic: Yoga, Meditation, Healthy, First Person, Healthy And Happy

I will write things, he was thinking. I will write something meaningful and wonderful someday. I can do that. And I'll dedicate it to you because you're the first person who ever made me think I could.

- Anne Rice

topic: Meaningful, Writing, Thinking, First Person

There is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along....

- Rainer Maria Rilke

topic: Loneliness, Agreement, Solitude, Sociability, First Person

Don't be fearful about the journey ahead; don't worry about where you are going or how you are going to get there. If you believe in the first person of the Trinity, God the Father, also believe in the second person of the Trinity, the one who came as the Light of the World, not only to die for people, but to light the way... This one, Jesus Christ, is himself the Light and will guide your footsteps along the way.

- Edith Schaeffer

topic: Jesus, Father, Believe, Light Of The World, Where You Are Going

back turned, you don't have to look at what you've left behind. And the first person who turned their back on you can't watch you break down and cry.

- Ellen Hopkins

topic: Watches, Looks, Down And, First Person

When you say, "I need more confidence," what you're really saying is, "I need those people over there to approve of me." That is the desire to control other people and what they think. The first person who figures out how to do this owns the world.

- Augusten Burroughs

topic: Thinking, People, Desire, First Person

When you're the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you're basically saying, "I'm right, and everyone else is wrong." That's a very unpleasant position to be in. It's at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked.

- Larry Ellison

topic: Inspirational, Change, Believe, Belive, First Person

I think a lot of my interest in history now isn't so much in places and names and texts and public figures, but more in examining all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of particular stories of everyday people. And if that doesn't happen, then I usually transplant myself and my own stories to a particular historical event. Which is why you'll see me, the first person pronoun, interacting in a song about Carl Sandburg, or you'll find my [sic] interacting with Saul Bellow. It's sort of a re-rendering of history and making it my own.

- Sufjan Stevens

topic: Song, Writing, Thinking, Pronouns, First Person

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.

- Aaron Sorkin

source: Aaron Sorkin's Commencement Address at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, news.syr.edu. May 13, 2012.

topic: Inspirational, Graduation, Hurt, First Person

A lot of individuals are so worried about being politically correct. I'd rather go ahead and say what's on my mind than to sit there and come up with some PC 'Oh, the guy is a great fighter and I have a lot of respect for him.' If I don't mean it, why is it even coming out of my mouth? ... I want to fight Lesnar. I hate who he is as a person. I want to break his neck in the ring. I want him to be the first person that dies due to Octagon-related injuries. That's what's going through my mind.

- Frank Mir

topic: Hate, Mean, Fighting, First Person

Make no mistake, the organizations website counsels. You will be writing a lot of crap. And thats a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. I am not the first person to point out that writing a lot of crap doesnt sound like a particularly fruitful way to spend an entire month, even if it is November.

- Laura Miller

topic: Mistake, Writing, Editing, First Person

I have an interest in making first-person games,

- Fumito Ueda

topic: Games, Firsts, Interest, First Person

The reward of the young scientist is the emotional th rill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape.

- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

topic: Emotional, World, Landscape, First Person

In a very basic way, a prominent landmark such as Mt. Holyoke tells you where you are. They let you know that you're not the first person in a place

- Tracy Kidder

topic: Way, Firsts, Landmarks, First Person, Prominent

Fortunately I am not the first person to tell you that you will never die. You simply lose your body. You will be the same except you won't have to worry about rent or mortgages or fashionable clothes. You will be released from sexual obsessions. You will not have drug addictions. You will not need alcohol. You will not have to worry about cellulite or cigarettes or cancer or AIDS or venereal disease. You will be free.

- Cookie Mueller

source: Cookie Mueller (1997). “Ask Dr. Mueller: The Writings of Cookie Mueller”, Serpent's Tail

topic: Cancer, Clothes, Addiction, Cellulite, Fashionable Clothes

When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.

- Daphne du Maurier

topic: Writing, Scary, Firsts, First Person

I have often wondered who was the first person to realize that eating an artichoke was a good idea.

- Chris Cosentino

topic: Ideas, Firsts, Realizing, First Person, Artichokes

I trust my mom with anything. If I have a problem, my mom is always the first person I go to.

- Richard Fleeshman

topic: Trust, Mom, Firsts, First Person

After Versace was murdered, the first person to call me was Mandela.

- Naomi Campbell

topic: Firsts, Versace, Call Me, First Person

I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

- Shirley Chisholm

source: Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.19, Take Root Media

topic: Thinking, Years, Black, Melanin, First Person

I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions.

- Diane di Prima

topic: Thinking, Two, Essentials, Newness, Pioneering

Pete Dj Jones was the first person that I saw with 2 turntables. This was 1972.

- Kurtis Blow

topic: Saws, Firsts, Turntables, First Person