Quotes About Identity

When I reach the head of the line, I hand my passport to the black official and greet him in Shona, Zimbabwe's main vernacular. He ripens in smile and demands, "Why don't you stay here? We need people like you." By "people like you," he means white Zimbabweans.

To write a book about Mickey Mantle and not to show people who he really was doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So I decided the only way to do this is call it a novel and plow full-speed ahead as to what my interpretation and my estimation of who he was and what was troubling him. This is a very complicated book. It's hardly just about sex.

dynamic view of intellect—indeed, of self.

Gracias a mi cansancio, el mundo se liberaba de sus nombres y se hacía grande.

Y el mundo se convirtió en un país extranjero donde ya no había necesidad de huir ni de volver a casa.

Y al fin: feliz aquel que tiene sus lugares de duración; ya no será, aunque se haya trasladado para siempre a un país extraño, sin perspectivas de volver a su mundo, nadie a quien han expulsado de su patria.

y si de pronto hablaba tanto de sí mismo, de su vida «anterior», solo lo hacía para distraer la atención de su persona.

Nepakeliama b?ti su kuo nors susipykus. Staiga tas kitas tampa bevardžiu, kažkokiu dariniu, jo veidas pasitraukia ? šeš?l?, pasidaro neryškus, iškreiptas, ir mes tegalime ? j? skubotai žvilgtel?ti, iš apa?ios, tarsi pel?. ?sigij? prieš?, mes imame bjaur?tis patys savimi. Ir vis tiek visada tur?jome prieš?.

Porque no sé dónde estoy, porque he olvidado que estoy en la habitación y espero que me llamen a comer, porque me he olvidado de mí mismo, porque ya no me llega nada desde fuera que me indique dónde se encuentra mi cuerpo y porque ningún ruido me retiene, los pensamientos me llevan de aquí para allá en tierra de nadie; no son pensamientos elaborados por mí, sino pensamientos que surgen en mí.

Él piensa sobre sí mismo como si se tratara de otro; piensa sobre lo que le sucede, cuando sucede, como si ya hace mucho tiempo le hubiera sucedido a otro; y, a veces, piensa sobre uno al que ya hace mucho tiempo le sucedió algo como si fuera uno al que todavía le ha de suceder algo. Una vez él se quedó ciego.

Character Profile: MOE DRABOWSKY

Her name is unimportant and her face a visual sin.

Who's calling? Don't insult me like that, the voice says. I stop. Was I just insulting?

She's not royalty for Christ's sake. She's a Grape.

Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself," according to Anaïs Nin (herself the author of several abortions). But what if it's not a lie? And what if the someone is you?

Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, I am. We are ontological oxymorons.

Go back to Socrates: Know thyself. For Socrates, there are only two kinds of people: the wise, who know they are fools; and fools, who think they are wise. Similarly, for Christ and all the prophets, there are only two kinds of people: saints, who know they are sinners; and sinners, who think they are saints. Which are you?

What we do is not as important as what we are. Our functionalistic modern society tends to reduce our being to our function. What is the first question we ask about someone? "What does he do?" But love never asks that question first. The first question for love is always "Who are you?" rather than "What do you do?" Being is prior to doing, and love's realism refuses to reverse that real order.

are more like Dog and Cat and Bird than like Lassie and Fido and Spot. Therefore

For we are not pure spirits who happen to be trapped in bodies. We are not even spirits who only have bodies, for we do not have bodies as we have possessions. We are bodies as well as souls.

Between 50 and 75% of entering freshmen at large Catholic universities typically identify themselves as believing and practicing Catholics. Only 25-50% of graduating seniors do the same.

When God changed someone's name in Scripture, He changed their destiny: Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Simon to Peter.

No man who bothers about originality will ever be original; whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence about how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self.

This is what God did in the Incarnation. Being became a being, the Subject became an object, God became a man, I AM became a He.