Quotes About Identity

He was his mother's son, kind and gentle. She was her father's daughter, quick of mind, fascinated by intrigue and all that went with it. But

Men had no purpose on earth whereas women were gods walking unrecognized among them.

I am mad, I think. I am mad therefore I think. I am mad therefore I think I am.

A 'career woman,' Sylvie said, as if the two words had no place in the same sentence. A spinster, she added, contemplating the word. Ursula wondered why her mother was working so hard to rile her. Perhaps you will never marry, Sylvie said, as if in conclusion, as if Ursula's life was as good as over. Would that be such a bad thing? 'The unmarried daughter,' Ursula said, tucking into an iced fancy. It was good enough for Jane Austen.

I'm always so glad,' Sylvie murmured, 'that I don't have to take a turn at being other people.' 'You're very good at being yourself,' Ursula said, aware that it didn't necessarily sound like a compliment. 'Well, I've had years of practice.

Human nature favors the tribal. Tribalism engenders violence. It was ever thus and so it will ever be.

I mean what else is there for a woman to do if she doesn't want to go from the parental to the marital home with nothing in between? 'An educated woman,'Millie amended. 'An educated woman,' Ursula agreed.

On the outside of the bedroom door there was a plaque that said Valerie . On the way up, Jackson noticed that other bedrooms also had names - Eleanor, Lucy, Anna, Charlotte .Jackson wondered how you decided on a name for a room. Or a doll. Or a child, for that matter. The naming of dogs seemed even more perplexing.

In Teddy's experience people who claimed to be one thing were generally the opposite

Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being.

She... applied makeup, enough to have made an effort, not enough to be blatantly a woman...

I'm not myself, she said and then laughed maniacally, but God knows who I am.

I am a jewel. I am a drop of blood. I am Ruby Lennox!

They all chose Indian names for themselves. Teddy was Little Fox ("Naturally," Ursula said). Nancy was Little Wolf ("Honiahaka" in Cheyenne, Mrs. Shawcross said. She had a book she referred to). Mrs. Shawcross herself was Great White Eagle ("Oh, for heaven's sake," Sylvie said, "talk about hubris").

More and more these days, he had noticed, he felt like a visitor from another planet. Or the past. Sometimes Jackson thought that the past wasn't just another country, it was a lost continent somewhere

You couldn't necessarily judge a woman by the man she slept with. (Or could you?)

Could you be an old maid if you had worn the scarlet letter?

A man has to BE something; he has to matter.

Riches ennoble a man's circumstances, but not himself.

No Jew was ever fool enough to turn Christian unless he was a clever man.

I'm a perfectionist. I need to be needed. I need to do things for a man. But I don't need to do them as much, these days.

I don't look like a leading man, whatever they look like. It's changing a little.

It seems to me you do not care what banality a man expresses so long as he expresses it in Irish.

I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man.