Quotes About Identity

There is no you, Maria, any more than there is a me. There is only this way that we have established over the months of performing together, and what it is congruent with isn't ourselves but past performances--we're has-beens at heart, routinely trotting out the old, old act.

ero una biografia in moto perpetuo, memoria sino al midollo delle ossa.

Even when she was dressed up she didn't look like a chosen person.

What I wanted was the tiniest thing in the world: to be like everyone else.

Everything runs away, beginning with who you are, and at some indefinable point you come to half understand that the ruthless antagonist is yourself.

Why is it," the unhappy teacher finally asked, "that for centuries people have hated you Jews?" Amy rose to her feet. She was stunned. "Don't ask me that!" the girl said—"ask the madmen who hate us!" And she had nothing further to do with Miss Giddings as a friend—or with anyone else who asked her anything about what they couldn't possibly understand.

Meneer Portnoy,' zei ze terwijl ze haar knapzak optilde, 'u bent alleen maar een jood die een hekel heeft aan zichzelf.' 'Ah, maar Naomi, dat zijn misschien juist de beste.

Waarom zou ik behoefte hebben aan een monument in mijn naam terwijl er op straat zo'n feestbanket rondloopt?

Dottor Spielvogel, questa è la mia vita, la mia unica vita, e la sto vivendo da protagonista di una barzelletta ebraica! Io sono il figlio in una barzelletta ebraica… solo che non è affatto una barzelletta!

Nathan, your story, as far as Gentiles are concerned, is about one thing and one thing only. Listen to me, before you go. It is about kikes. Kikes and their love of money.

Perchè solo quando scopi riesci a vendicarti, anche se solo per un momento, di tutto ciò che non ami nella vita e di tutte le cose che nella vita ti hanno sconfitto. Solo allora sei più nettamente vivo e più nettamente te stesso. [...] Il sesso non è semplice frizione e divertimento superficiale. Il sesso è anche la vendetta sulla morte.

Clothes are a masquerade anyway. When you go outside and see everyone in clothes, then you know for sure that nobody has a clue to why he was born and that, aware of it or not, people are perpetually performing in a dream.

What I'm saying, Doctor, is that I don't seem to stick my dick up these girls, as much as I stick it up their backgrounds - as though through fucking I will discover America.

What was astonishing to him was how people seemed to run out of their own being, run out of whatever the stuff was that made them who they were and, drained of themselves, turn into the sort of people they would once have felt sorry for.

Llega un momento, como me llegó a mí hace unos meses, en que se halla uno en tal estado de desamparo y confusión, que no logra comprender lo que otrora resultaba obvio: por qué hago lo que hago, por qué vivo donde vivo, por qué comparto mi vida con quien la comparto.

I am a breast. A Phenomenon that has been vastly described to me as a massive hormonal influx, a endocrinopathic catastrophe and/or a hermaphroditic explosion of chromosomes took place within my body between midnight and 4 A.M. on February 18, 1971, and converted me into a mammary gland disconnected from any human form.

He was trying hard to continue to exist as himself despite the unlikeliness of everything.

the time will come when we are people again, and not just Jews.

The legend engraved on the face of the Jewish nickel—on the body of every Jewish child!—not IN GOD WE TRUST, but SOMEDAY YOU'LL BE A PARENT AND YOU'LL KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE.

Nathan called all shiksas Maria--the explanation seemed as ludicrously simple as that.

I know the kind of man I am and the kind of writer. I have my own kind of bravery, and please, let's leave it at that.

Unlike him, many were able not merely to construct whole conversations that revolved around their grandchildren but to find sufficient grounds for existence in the existence of their grandchildren.

Hi, my name is Mitchell. I'm an alcoholic.' 'Hi, I'm Flora. I'm cross-addicted.'" "Cross-addicted?" Sabbath asked. "Who knows—some Catholic thing.

she was fifty-five and seared with hot flashes, and her daughter's was now the female form exuding the magnetic currents.