"It's hard being visible, so I've made myself invisible"
About this Quote
Steel is a novelist whose brand is prolific output and mass intimacy: millions of readers feel they "know" her, even as the author herself becomes a target for projection. That gap is the context this sentence quietly admits. In the age of celebrity-by-default and social media compulsion, being visible isn't just being seen; it's being handled. Fans consume. Critics reduce. Strangers feel licensed to narrate your life back at you. The subtext is fatigue with the bargain: attention in exchange for privacy, legibility in exchange for complexity.
The craft here is the paradox. Invisibility isn't literal; it's a strategy. You can publish relentlessly and still disappear emotionally. You can be everywhere and withheld. Steel turns a common coping mechanism - retreat, boundary, the curated self - into a crisp aphorism that captures a modern truth: sometimes the only way to keep your interior life intact is to become unreadable. In a culture that treats openness as virtue, "invisible" becomes a form of control.
Quote Details
| Topic | Loneliness |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Steel, Danielle. (2026, January 16). It's hard being visible, so I've made myself invisible. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-hard-being-visible-so-ive-made-myself-110254/
Chicago Style
Steel, Danielle. "It's hard being visible, so I've made myself invisible." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-hard-being-visible-so-ive-made-myself-110254/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It's hard being visible, so I've made myself invisible." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-hard-being-visible-so-ive-made-myself-110254/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.








