If you search for quotes by Matthew Dicks on the internet, the one that comes up most often is from my novel “Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend.” It reads:
“You have to be the bravest person in the world to go out every day, being yourself when no one likes who you are.”
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It’s a good one because it represents a running theme in my fiction:
We are told as children to aschew peer pressure. Blaze your own trail. Be yourself.
But when the person you become doesn’t conform to societal expectations, you are often punished for being different.
I write about people brave enough to be different in the face of oppressive conformity.
But it turns out others have spoken about this idea before me. Specifically, these two quotes are very similar.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” — David Brinkley
I may not be original, but I keep very good company.
