Quotes About Self

Rahel never wrote to him. There are things that you can't do—like writing letters to a part of yourself.

We need an updated insurance plan against our won basic natures

It had to do with the way she lived, in the country of her own skin. A country that issued no visas and seemed to have no consulates.

And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.

Because it had to do with more than all that. It was the haughtiness (despite the question mark over her 'stock', as his mother had not hesitated to put it). It had to do with the way she lived, in the country of her own skin. A country that issued no visas and seemed to have no consulates.

I reflected as I walked that I had come to Berkshire to find peace, and so far, it had eluded me. But perhaps peace was not in a place but within one's self. In that case, I might never find it. There was little at peace inside Gabriel Lacey.

Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.

We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love." That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail. "Many of the things that we want for those we care about are things that we would adamantly oppose for ourselves because they would infringe upon our sense of self.

That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail. "Many of the things that we want for those we care about are things that we would adamantly oppose for ourselves because they would infringe upon our sense of self.

It had never occurred to me that I could go.

that I myself have said no.

People seemed to have two different selves--an experiencing self who endures every moment equally and a remembering self who gives almost all the weight of judgment afterward to two single points in time, the worst moment and the last one.

This is someone who makes his living studying disorders of the brain and the nerves. Yet he could not make sense of his own condition.

As with many doctors, his job was his identity.

The veneration of elders may be gone, but not because it has been replaced by veneration of youth. It's been replaced by veneration of the independent self.

We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love." That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail. "Many of the things that we want for those we care about are things that we would adamantly oppose for ourselves because they would infringe upon our sense of self." She

All we ask is to be allowed to remain the writers of our own story.

The value of autonomy Ã¢â'¬Â¦ lies in the scheme of responsibility it creates: autonomy makes each of us responsible for shaping his own life according to some coherent and distinctive sense of character, conviction, and interest. It allows us to lead our own lives rather than be led along them, so that each of us can be, to the extent such a scheme of rights can make this possible, what he has made himself." All

The amount of freedom you have in your life is not the measure of the worth of your life.

People seemed to have two different selves—an experiencing self who endures every moment equally and a remembering self who gives almost all the weight of judgment afterward to two single points in time, the worst moment and the last one. The remembering

I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.

Tell them about how you're never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there's always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don't speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside.

The way you get people to testify against themselves is not to have police tactics and oppressive techniques. What you do is build it in so people learn to distrust everything in themselves that has not been sanctioned, to reject what is most creative in themselves to begin with, so you don't even need to stamp it out.

I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine. I wish to raise a Black man who will recognize that the legitimate objects of his hostility are not women, but the particulars of a structure that programs him to fear and despise women as well as his own Black self.