Quotes About Individuality

And, as you know, opinions are like assholes---everybody has one.)

each person fulfills his or her own destiny—whether it be good or bad—in his or her own time and unique way.

My language is the sum total of myself.

People shouldn't be embarrassed just because they get caught acting a little silly.

The man who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.

To be conscious is already to be divided, to be multiple.

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.

Charles Simic, when asked what he thought of Slam Poetry events: "They are fun, but they have as much to do with poetry as Elvis Presley had to do with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk".

They can put the code monkey in a suit but they can't take the code out of the monkey.

Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group…then to hell with them.

Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean (merely average performance).

we almost always make the implicit assumption that everybody else thinks and ex-periences about the same way as we do, with the exception of "crazy" people.

There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me .

Herder put forward the idea that each of us has an original way of being human. Each person has his or her own "measure" is his way of putting it. This idea has entered very deep into modern consciousness. It is also new. Before the late eighteenth century no one thought that the differences between human beings had this kind of moral significance.

The race advances only by the extra achievements of the individual. You are the individual.

She says that telling a love story is something one person does. Being in love takes both of them. Putting her on a pedestal is just a different way of being alone.

All he ever knew of her was who he saw every day. All I am is who I am every day. All anyone is to anyone is a series of days.

The truth is, she's a weirdo. Just like you were. Are. A glorious, perfectly weird weirdo. Like all kids before they forget how to be exactly how weird they really are. Into whatever they're into, pure. Before knowing. Before they learn from others how to act. Before they learn they are Asian, or Black, or Brown, or White. Before they learn that all the things they are and about all the things they will never be.

He allowed it to happen, allowed himself to become "generic", so that no one could even tell what was happening. He is guilty, Your Honor and ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Guilty of wanting to become a part of something that never wanted him. The defense rests.

But the experience of Asians in America isn't just a scaled-back or dialed-down version of the Black experience. Instead of co-opting someone else's experience or consciousness, he must define his own.

Even now, as Special Guest Star, even here, in your own neighborhood. Two words that define you, flatten you, trap you and keep you here. Who you are. All you are. Your most salient feature, overshadowing any other feature about you, making irrelevant any other characteristic. Both necessary and sufficient for a complete definition of your identity:

Henry's not a good guy. He's getting the life he deserves and most days he seems okay with that. I forget that the majority of people don't want special powers, like Henry, who can just barely handle being normal.

It's not clear if he can dunk (no one's ever seen him try) but he can definitely grab the rim and that alone is pretty impressive given that he's five eleven and three-quarters. —Which, for the record, is the perfect height for an Asian dude. Tall enough for women to notice (even in heels! even White women!), tall enough to not get ignored by the bartender, but not so tall to get called Yao Ming and considered some kind of Mongolian freak.