Quotes About Identity

Every Mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother and every mother extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter. —Carl Jung

We late-lamented, resting here, Are mixed to human jam, And each to each exclaims in fear, 'I know not which I am!' " —Thomas Hardy, "The Levelled Churchyard," 1882

said, "before you have your wicked way with me. I'm Tommy Godwin, by the way." "So I'd gathered," retorted Gemma, escaping gratefully to the loo. Once safely behind the closed

Children adopted as infants have been shown to enjoy higher than average rates of secure attachment with their parents. Adopted children may also feel a bond with their birthparents, although they may never have formed an attachment with them. Their shared biologic and emotional connection with birthparents creates a bond.

Healthy families master the knack of keeping the accent on the positive. Although the family alters after a challenging placement, they work through grief, re-balance, add resources, and find new ways to make life good. Their identity is not wrapped around a child's trauma or limitations. Instead, they find ways to accommodate special needs, without the special needs becoming the focal point of life.

This formulation rendered Judaism more than just a competing religion. It became a source of evil.

There are racist African Americans, sexist women, and antisemitic Jews.

Though one may not find an overtly racist or Nazi symbol among the clean-cut and well-dressed adherents of these new groups, their views are just as extremist as those of the most committed member of the KKK. They advocate a race-based white supremacism. For them, an American citizen is someone who is white and Christian.

According to Irving a significant number of the members of this firm are "evidently Jewish." Judge Sedley, he suggested, might be acting on his "religious instincts" more than the dictates of the law.

When our children fear there is danger in openly identifying as a Jew, it is indeed something that should concern us all.

When I bring my children to their Jewish school and see the guards with submachine guns, I feel relieved. Then I wonder, Why am I sending my children to a school where they have to be protected by armed guards? But if I send them to a 'French' school, they are harassed, particularly by the Muslim students.

When I was in high school, all my friends said they were going to be writers. And I thought, How come you get to be a writer, and I don't? I thought WRITER was written on their foreheads and they saw it when they looked in the mirror, and I sure didn't see it when I looked in the mirror. I always thought of writing as holy. I still do.

she just seemed to have been put together more on purpose than other people.

Sure she wanted him to be someone else, or at least sort of someone else. Pretty much everyone wants everyone else to be at least sort of someone else, don't they?

Who a person becomes later in life, how he lives, how he dies, cloud's people's memories of him, spinning and skewing-distorting-their portraits of him as a child. But we will draw Vincent as clearly as we can using not only impressions but also strong lines, sharp details. A picture will emerge.

He doesn't talk about his past, or his future. He passionately wants to make something of his life, to make an offering to the world. And to his family. He doesn't want to make letterheads! How can he be true to himself and keep the bond with his family?

I am not a fucking elf,' she said flatly.

Mom, you're not going to let him name him, are you? That's favoritism, and I'll be traumatized if you do.

Who's the young man beside you?" Helen suddenly asked. "Oh, I see, you're one of us." She turned to Nonie. "And you did introduce us before." She tapped a finger against her right temple. "Every once in a while this old clock up here forgets to click to the next second. I apologize for that.

She was not a poet. She was a poem.

I will never stop grieving for my long-held wish for enduring love that does not reduce its major players to something less than they are.

Sometimes we want to unbelong as much as we want to belong.

My problem is that I want to smoke the cigar and for someone else to light it. I want to blow out smoke. Like a volcano. Like a monster. I want to fume. I do not want to be the girl whose job it is to wail in a high-pitched voice at funerals.

It would take a while for me not to think of the Greek language as the father who walked out on me