Quotes About Identity

You? Nervous? Man, you've got more balls than any girl I've ever known!' 'You've known some weird girls, then," I say, raising an eyebrow at him.

I just don't know what I'd do without a brain, Simone!" I say. "I mean, what's a person without one?

But I identify myself, as always,With something that there's something wrong with,With something human.

No race, no ethnic or religious group, has suffered so much over so long a span as blacks have, and do still, at the hands of those who benefited, with the connivance of the United States government, from slavery and the century of legalized American racial hostility that followed it. It is a miracle that the victims–weary dark souls long shorn of a venerable and ancient identity–have survived at all, stymied as they are by the blocked roads to economic equality.

African Americans must spiritually survive from the meager basket of a few mean yesterdays. No chance for significant group progress there. None. For we have been largely overwhelmed by a majority culture that wronged us dramatically, emptied our memories, undermined our self-esteem, implanted us with palatable voices, and stripped us along the way of the sheerest corona of self-definition.

Though it would appear that Americans grow less knowledgeable by the day, there are still many American schoolchildren who recognize the Roman Colosseum, the Great Wall of China, the Parthenon, the Tower of London. From Africa, only the great pyramids of Egypt enjoy such broad recognition, and they are popularly and wrongly attributed to a civilization not spawned from Africa's interior.

The devil white man cut these black people off from all knowledge of their own kind, and cut them off from any knowledge of their own language, religion, and past culture, until the black man in America was the earth's only race of people who had absolutely no knowledge of his true identity.–The Autobiography of Malcolm X

We, like others, need to define ourselves, to place our lives in a long-term linear intergenerational context. We, like others, need to celebrate ourselves by seeing ourselves celebrated. We, like others, need to stare at objects that can help us discover reflections of ourselves in an idealized past. That's really what it's all about, isn't it? Remembering. The human's innate need to remember one's self before one's own time.

What then was I doing visiting George Washington's Mount Vernon many years ago with Hazel? Confused? Confessedly. How can any American who isn't white not be?

We are all made up," he answered aloud. "We are only real at night.

War is a farmer's son from Kansas trying to kill a factory worker's son from Berlin, with neither of them knowing why.

Children who experience abuse also learn to deny pain and chaos or accept them as normal and proper. They learn that their feelings were wrong or didn't matter. They learn to focus on immediate survival - on not getting abused, and miss out on important developmental stages. As a result, they have problems developing their own identities.

Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has.

Personally, I'd sooner be a cabbage than a crackpot. Cabbages have the respect of their neighbours.

I love my parents. Coming out to them was sort of coming out to myself. I educated them, and I wanted our relationship to keep growing. I wanted them to be a part of my life still. I wanted to be able to share with them what I was going through.

Dad said that he was prouder of me than he'd ever been when I came out.

I actually have more respect for people who are in the closet. You end up exposing so much of yourself because you have to talk about your sexual life. You shouldn't have to talk about it.

Passion pulls you. It's the sense of connection you feel when the work you do expresses who you are. Only passion will get you through the tough times.

If I were to die tomorrow, I think they'd say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.

Yes, Baby...I've been drinkin'...I shouldn't come by I know...but I found myself in trouble, darlin'...and I have no place else to go. Honey I'm guilty..yes I'm guilty...and I'll be guilty for the rest of my life. How come I never do, what I'm supposed to do. Nothin' I try to do ever turns out right. You know how it is with me baby, I just can't stand myself...it takes a whole lotta medicine, darlin'...for me to pretend that I'm somebody else.

If you can find your footing between two cultures, sometimes you can have the best of both worlds.

Nakon što sam obranio doktorat, majka bi me s velikim zadovoljstvom predstavljala ovim rije?ima: »Ovo je moj sin. On je doktor, ali ne od onih koji pomažu ljudima.«

U redu, možda ovo zvu?i malo uvrnuto. Ali ako vaša kanta za sme?e ili ta?ke imaju kakvu ulupinu, ne?ete kupovati nove. Možda je to zato jer vam kante za sme?e i ta?ke ne služe kao simboli socijalnog statusa i identiteta. Za Jai i mene naši su ošte?eni automobili postali potvrda našeg braka. Ne treba se baš sve popraviti.

If your trashcan or wheelbarrow has dent in it, you don't buy a new one. Maybe that's because we don't use trashcans and wheelbarrows to communicate our social status or identity to others.