Quotes About Individuality

Esa no era la persona que él creía ser, o la que habría elegido ser si hubiera tenido la libertad de elegir, pero había algo reconfortante y liberador en ser una persona real y definida, y no una colección de personas potenciales y contradictorias.

L'America, [...] il paese della libertà, il luogo dei grandi spazi aperti dove un figlio poteva ancora sentirsi speciale. Niente, però, disturba questa sensazione quanto la presenza di altri esseri umani che si sentono altrettanto speciali.

Ora si rendeva conto […] che aveva sempre odiato essere la figlia di un pastore. I padri delle sue amiche progettavano edifici, curavano malattie, perseguivano criminali. Suo padre era come un fabbricante di croci, però peggio. La sua fede ardente, la sua santità, erano un odore che aveva sempre minacciato di aderire a lei, come la puzza delle Chesterfield, però peggio, perché non si poteva lavare via.

Jonathan Franzen

Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self.

Everyone's body betrayed them in different ways, it was all forgiven and never discussed.

Sleepwalkers, leave other sleepwalkers alone!

Let him get stoned, since everybody must.

We're each alone inside our heads, some more so than others.

I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)

Even if I don't like what I am, I know what I am. My children like what they are, but they don't know what they are. So tell me which is worse.

I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me.

I think it's very pretty. Can it be pretty if no one thinks it's pretty? I think it's pretty. If you're the only one? That's pretty pretty. And what about the boys? Don't you want them to think you're pretty? I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.

My insides don't match up with my outsides. -Do anyone's inside and outsides match up? -I don't know. I'm only me. -Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside.

Between any two beings there is a unique, uncrossable distance, an unenterable sanctuary. Sometimes it takes the shape of aloneness. Sometimes it takes the shape of love.

My feelings have never once cared about what they should be.

I'm not better than anyone, and I'm not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what's right. I'm trying to convince them to live by their own.

Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.

I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.

If I'd been somone else in a different world I'd've done something different, but I was myself and the world was the world, so I was silent.

The wanting, the needing, the distance, the disappointment: growing, knowing, committing, aging beside another. Alone, one can live perfectly. But not a life.

It stayed with him, like a part of him, like a birthmark, like a limb, it was on him, in him, him, his hymn: I had to do it for myself.

I'd write Ha ha ha! and instead of singing in the shower I would write out the lyrics of my favorite songs, the ink would turn the water blue or red or green, and the music would run down my legs (..)

Nobody wants to be a caricature. Nobody wants to be a diminished version of herself.