Quotes About Identity

As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons.

Dream and give yourself permission to envision a You that you can choose to be.

People were always able to look at Bettie Page and see what they needed her to be and she gave them that permission to do so. So in that way she's a feminist but I don't think she was ever trying to be.

I think giving yourself permission to be weird is amazing. After all what does it mean to be normal?

I do wish I could have given myself permission to really name and own the me of me earlier in life.

My father didn't want me to go to New York City, and I was determined to go. Learning to give myself the permission to be who I was in the world and to make my own choices was hard.

My friend's mom said to me, 'honey, I think you're gay.' And I go, 'yeah, I am.' As soon as someone vocalized it to me, gave me permission. I was like, 'yes, yes, yeah!'

Labels can be really helpful when we have the autonomy to label ourselves. But when other people label us without our permission, that's when it becomes dangerous.

What I want is to respond to the challenge posed by the mass media - to permit the novel to say what can only be said by narrative - to allow it to be itself.

I had a head injury when I was living in England; I was in the hospital for three days, and they didn't even ask for my name. I spent three days in there. And then, when I was done, I just got up and left. I wasn't a British citizen; I was there on a work permit.

I cannot belong to a nation which permits such barbarities as stoning to death and amputation - I don't care what religion it is.

For many gay and bisexual men of color, economic inequalities add to the pernicious effects of oppression and homophobia.

Everything about women is in perpetual crisis.

Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.

Women's art, political art - those categorisations perpetuate a certain kind of marginality which I'm resistant to. But I absolutely define myself as a feminist.

I was certainly open for something being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, perplexed by my own sexuality. I was gay.

Off-camera, I sound like Perry Como.

I have a better head of hair than Rick Perry; it's just not in a place I can show you.

When someone comes forward and is an individual, such as a Lady Gaga or a Katy Perry, people respond to them because there is that sense of innocence. It's obviously dress up and theatre.

God knows what the Yanks will make of 'Kevin and Perry.' It's totally gross to them because we don't look like we're off 'Dawson's Creek' or whatever. They'll think we're really weird.

I think it's incredibly important for kids to be able to express who they are and feel like they can be themselves without being persecuted for it or bullied for it.

Kinsey would identify himself with Galileo in moments of feelings of persecution.

When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations.

I never experienced much outright anti-Semitism. While we learned about the Holocaust - endlessly, it felt like - no spray-painted swastika ever appeared on my childhood landscape. Jewish persecution was an ever-looming reality, but always an abstract one.