A Literary Prescription for

Feeling Different

For the outsiders, the odd ones out, and everyone who never quite fitted the mould.

Feeling different is one of the quietest, most common kinds of loneliness. It is the sense of standing slightly outside the group, of missing some instruction everyone else seemed to get, of being just enough unlike the people around you to feel it. It can start young and last a lifetime. But different is not a flaw, however it feels, and the people who never fitted the mould are very often the ones worth knowing. These books and poems are for anyone who has felt apart.

Books Poetry Quotes & Prose

Books

Prescribed reading

Some of these put you inside a mind that experiences the world differently, and some simply celebrate the people who never blended in. Fiction and non-fiction together, they offer the same steadying company: proof that feeling different is common, survivable, and very often the beginning of something rather wonderful.

Stargirl

Jerry Spinelli · 2000

Stargirl arrives at an ordinary high school utterly, fearlessly herself, and the story watches what a conformist world does with someone that free. It is a tender, bittersweet fable about the cost and the beauty of being different. For any reader who has felt punished for standing out, Stargirl is a small act of encouragement to stay exactly as strange and lovely as they are.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon · 2003

Narrated by a fifteen-year-old who sees and feels the world unlike those around him, Haddon’s novel puts you so fully inside a different mind that difference starts to feel like its own kind of clarity. Funny, moving and quietly revelatory, it is a wonderful book for feeling less alone in a brain that works its own way.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky · 1999

Charlie is a shy, sensitive outsider trying to find his place, and this tender novel-in-letters became a touchstone for a reason: it makes the lonely, watching, slightly-apart teenager feel seen. For anyone who has stood at the edge of the party wondering how everyone else knows the steps, it is warm, wise company.

The Handbook for Highly Sensitive People

Mel Collins · 2019

For the many people who have always felt they feel too much, notice too much, and are affected too deeply, Collins offers understanding and practical help. It reframes high sensitivity as a difference to be worked with rather than a fault to be fixed. A validating, gentle guide for anyone who has been told they are ‘too sensitive’ one time too many.

Far from the Tree

Andrew Solomon · 2012

Solomon’s magnificent book explores families whose children are profoundly different from them, and finds, again and again, that difference can be a source of identity, meaning and even joy. It is long, humane and quietly life-changing. For anyone wrestling with feeling unlike everyone around them, it widens the whole idea of what a good, full life can look like.

Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides · 2002

A sweeping, generous novel narrated by someone who has never fitted the categories the world insists on, and who makes a rich life anyway. Eugenides writes difference with warmth, humour and enormous heart. It is a big, embracing book for anyone who has felt they fall between the lines other people draw so confidently.

Poems about feeling different

For standing a little apart

from “Sympathy”

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1899

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
…It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
…I know why the caged bird sings!

Dunbar, writing as a Black poet in nineteenth-century America, understood better than most what it is to be caged by other people’s idea of you. His caged bird sings not from joy but from longing to be free and fully itself. For anyone who has felt boxed in by a world that could not see them clearly, it is a poem of deep, dignified recognition.

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from “Alone”

Sara Teasdale, 1926

I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space.

Teasdale captures the particular altitude of feeling different: that sense of standing high and apart, snow swirling, no one quite within reach. She does not pretend it away, and there is a strange dignity in that honesty. For the days the distance between you and everyone else feels vast, her clear modern voice is oddly comforting company.

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from “The Farmer’s Bride”

Charlotte Mew, 1916

…But she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter’s day
Her smile went out, and ’twasn’t a woman —
More like a little frightened fay.

Mew’s young bride is a wild, fey, untameable creature who cannot be pressed into the shape the world expects of her. It is a haunting portrait of someone simply too different to fit the mould, and of how lonely that can be. Written by a poet who knew herself what it was to stand outside, in a plain, modern voice that still lands.

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Quotes & Prose

Quotes about feeling different to keep

Why fit in when you were born to stand out?

attributed to Dr Seuss

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Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

Margaret Mead

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Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.

Morticia Addams

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The thing that makes you weird as a kid makes you great tomorrow.

attributed to Steve Buscemi

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Blessed are the weird people: the poets, the misfits, the writers, the mystics, the outsiders.

Jacob Nordby

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From Georgia

At home in your own skin

A gentle practice for meeting your own true self with warmth, and an essay on belonging to the life you actually have rather than the one you thought you should.

Embracing Your True Self

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare

A guided practice for softening towards the parts of you that feel different, and learning to meet your own true nature with acceptance.

Listen Now For Free

Learning to Belong to the Life You Have

Personal essay by Georgia Clare · The Library

On finding a sense of belonging that starts from the inside, and no longer depends on fitting anyone else’s idea of normal.

Read the Essay →

The 21-Day Meditation Course

Guided Meditation Course · Georgia Clare

Three weeks of short, guided meditations to help you build a calm, steady daily practice, one day at a time.

Start the 21-Day Course →

Questions people ask

Reading for Feeling Different

Where should I start?

If you have always felt like the odd one out, start with Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, a small, luminous story about a girl who is gloriously herself in a world that wants her to blend in. And if you would rather understand the feeling, The Handbook for Highly Sensitive People is a warm, validating guide for anyone who has always felt they experience the world differently. The poems below are good company too.

What can I read when I feel like I don’t fit in?

Stories about people who never quite fitted, and were remarkable for it. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Middlesex both put you inside a mind the world calls different, with enormous tenderness. Or begin with the poems and the lines to keep further down the page. Feeling different is lonely, but it is far more common than it looks from the outside.

Which quotes about feeling different are worth keeping?

Quotes worth keeping include “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson), “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” (often attributed to Dr Seuss) and “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” (Margaret Mead). You will find these and more in the quotes section above.

Can reading really help when you feel different?

It genuinely can. The loneliest part of feeling different is the sense that no one else is quite like you. Reading takes some of that away: page after page, you meet people who felt exactly as out of place as you do, and who turned out to be interesting, lovable and fine. It is quiet, powerful proof that different is not the same as wrong.

Feeling Different

Prescribed reading

For standing a little apart

Quotes about feeling different to keep

At home in your own skin

Reading for Feeling Different

Where should I start?

What can I read when I feel like I don’t fit in?

Which quotes about feeling different are worth keeping?

Can reading really help when you feel different?

More prescriptions await.