Quotes About Individuality

I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.

How difficult it is for any of us to listen to our own voice or maintain our own beliefs in the presence of others.

Felt good, though, just being what I was.

So I'm smoking in the house, Mother said. And Bobbie's got a dog in her room. And your son Will's got an Injun in his. So there it is, Mother said. Like it or lump it!

If you own yourself, you own the world.

Weird here is something we aspire to, something we perfect, get degrees in, get awards for.

A person without her or his own truth ain't a person at all, Ida said. Anybody who tells you different—is a jackass, and no longer deserves to be called human being.

Identity is your role in life, the part you play. Individuality is who you are, and who you are is revealed to you if you can get to complete presence.

The idea that all the people locked up in mental hospitals are sane while all the people walking about are mad is merely a literary cliche, put about by people who should be locked up. I assure you there is not much in it. Taken as a whole, the sane are out there the sick are in here. For example you are in here because you have delusions that sane people are put in mental hospitals.

I don't act, I don't direct, I don't design.

I am not my body. My body is nothing without me.

You don't understand the things I do, but I do have my reasons. They're not your reasons, so they're not real to you, but they're real to me, and that's enough.

the hipster effect occurs, he suggests, when people try to make decisions in opposition to the majority. Because no one knows exactly what other people are going to do next, and information can be noisy or delayed, there can also be periods of brief "synchronization," in which nonconformists fail to be "disaligned with the majority.

We all want to be individuals on the road, but smooth-flowing traffic requires conformity. We want all the lights to be green, unless we are on the intersecting road, in which case we want those lights to be green. We want little traffic on our own street but a convenient ten-lane highway blazing just nearby. We all wish the other person would not drive, so that our trip would be faster. What's best for us on the road is often not best for everyone else, and vice versa.

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin, and dance around in your bones.

Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don't get out much. It's true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

I've never been a fan of personality-conflict burgers and identity-crisis omelets with patchouli oil. I function very well on a diet that consists of Chicken Catastrophe and Eggs Overwhelming and a tall, cool Janitor-in-a-Drum. I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil station.

There's nothing more embarrassing than a person who tries to guess what the great American public would like, makes a compromise for the first time, and falls flat on his face… I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else's. That's a difficult statement to live up to, but then I've always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

A tattoo is just one more way to identify a body.

Everyone's personality is a manifestation of their combined past experiences. If you are able to observe and interpret someone's behavior, you will eventually be able to predict that person's behavior as well.

Having a body tattoo is like wearing the same shirt everyday for the rest of your life.

Tattoos are just one more way to identify a body.

Tattoos are just one more way to identify the body.