IDENTITY QUOTES
quotations about identity
I have been moving around all my life. Going to different schools, living in different houses, shedding old roles, assuming new ones. This way of life is as natural to me as staying in one place is for other people. I do variations on the theme. I return to places where I used to be. I find my old personas. I try them on. If they still fit, I wear them out to a party or a show. If they begin to restrict my movements, I take them off. I am a human being, capable of mimicking anything I see or remember or can imagine.
ELLEN GILCHRIST
Falling Through Space
We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.
DONALD BARTHELME
Snow White
Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
WILLIAM JAMES
attributed, Worth Repeating
Who knows who you are ... A person is a novel: you don't know how it will end until the very last page. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading to the very end.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.
B. R. AMBEDKAR
Develop with Fact: Neutralizing the Catalysts of Downturn
To know another's heart, you must first know your own.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Narcissus in Chains
To know who you are is the greatest power of all.
SHERRILYN KENYON & DIANNA LOVE
Blood Trinity
Where do you find the parts to make yourself into some other kind of person? Can it be something you read in a book, a gesture you see on the street? Half-smile of a teacher, the walk of a girl on the beach.
AMY HEMPEL
"Tumble Home"
It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.
ANDRE GUIDE
Autumn Leaves
You can't change who you are. No matter how you struggle, some things will never change. And maybe they shouldn't.
ROB THURMAN
Nightlife
When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
Excuse my absolute freedom. I refuse to make a distinction between any of the moments of myself.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Selected Writings
I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Sputnik Sweeheart
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
KURT VONNEGUT
Mother Night
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
BOB DYLAN
"Maggie's Farm"
No change, I can't change, I can't change, I can't change,
But I'm here in my mold, I am here in my mold.
And I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mold, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
THE VERVE
"Bitter Sweet Symphony", Urban Hymns
Folks can change their ways much as they want to. But I don't care how many times you change your ways, what's in you is in you, and it's got to come out.
JAMES BALDWIN
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Myself is thus and so, and will continue thus and so. And why fight it? My balance comes from instability.
SAUL BELLOW
Herzog
All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self.... What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself -- a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required.... I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.
PHILIP ROTH
The Counterlife
The only true happiness lies in knowing who you are ... and making peace with it.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Narcissus in Chains