Quotes About Identity

Charles Dickens once said that "Home" is simply a name, a word, but it's a strong one; stronger than any magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. And when I saw Blake again after we thought he'd died, as I held his son's hand in that hospital room, I finally understood how, sometimes, "Home" is not a place. It's a person . . .

We all need a mask in order to function. But wear the mask too long and we forget who really lives behind it. Right? We forget our authentic selves." Lily shifts in her chair, increasingly uncomfortable with this talk on the back of her session with Garth.

wonder if something like that can leave a DNA fingerprint of sorts. Something that creates a physical longing in one for a place in order to feel whole.

Daisy can't bear shutting off her Instagram space. What would she have left? She'd have no daily connection, no love, hearts, validation. She needs it all so badly just to keep going. Her life would be so empty. Lonely. Why can't she be more like the old schoolgirl-teen Daisy?

We . . . all just need to feel worthy, don't we? To be loved. To belong. Because if we don't feel that we belong somewhere, how can we ever call it home? Isn't it a most basic survival thing, because to be cast out of a group, or a herd, can mean death?

We are—or we become—what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful who we pretend to be. I check the time. I have a few more minutes before I must get into my uniform. I open a browser and search for "Jon Rittenberg" "Colorado" "Silver Aspens Ski Resort." Articles from the local Colorado newspapers pop up. The older articles mention that Silver Aspens, a TerraWest property, has a new operations manager—gold medalist

What's wrong with me? I'll tell you what's wrong, Daisy. This Waheed guy is brown and I'm white—I'm a white guy nearing middle age and times have changed and everyone needs the optics of diversity.

She's understanding now what women mean when they say females her age seem to disappear.

Normal is a construct. A story people tell themselves. It's what everyone does—feigns some concept of normalcy. Stories people tell themselves are the only reality humans know.

This is your friend? Your 'perfect' Vanessa? You bloody little idiot woman. How could you be duped like this? For fuck's sake. You've been seeing this woman in a fake belly since July, and all the while it's Katarina? The bitch who tried to take me down all those years ago? And you let her into our lives like this? What in the hell is wrong with you?

You had such promise, Katarina. You were top of your class in mathematics, in chemistry, physics. You won the English essay contest. You were on the honor roll. You could have been anything you wanted, but now you are a maid, cleaning up after other people.

Memories defined a person. Without autobiographical memory, the face in the mirror was a stranger's. One became an alien, flailing around in a constant, unrelenting present with no touchstones to guide one into the future and out of the past.

People live in the six inches of real estate between their ears—in that three pounds of fat and protein that is the human brain. They live inside their heads. That's where reality resides. That's where every single human constructs an individual narrative of their life. That's where they tell themselves who they are, and what they can and can't be. And no person's reality can ever be the same as anyone else's.

As she held her new baby in her arms, it had hit hard—it was the first time in her life she was looking at family who looked like her. And it made her think that there were more people out there of her blood. Her curiosity grew intense.

This was supposed to be mine. Labden guaranteed me the COO position for the new resort when it comes online. I've put my heart and sweat into this company for years. TerraWest has traded on my name, my Olympic fame, my gold medals, for God's sake. I'm married to the founder's daughter.

It's about political correctness. Give the brown boy the top job because he's brown. We all know it. It has nothing to do with experience and suitability for the position.

Why must women stay quietly? Why must we be little moons, each of us stuck in our little orbit, revolving around a planet that is some man? Why can't we be other planets? Why must we be moons?

Masculine pride is an exceedingly precious and fragile thing

Do you remember little Zoe Octavia Lexham?' he said. His aunt cast her pale blue gaze in the direction of the great chandelier, as though that was where she kept her memory. 'Zoe Octavia,' she said.

In fact, the word transition seems to me to be used incorrectly. Most people use it to mean going from one identity to another, such as with surgery or the use of hormones. I understand it to mean that the person has the other identity already and the transition involves the perceptions of society aligning with that identity. In this "word flip" it is not the person who is transitioning but society, which is transitioning its perceptions of that person.

But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you've told yourself about who you are so that you aren't trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you've been telling yourself about your life.

let go of the limiting stories you've told yourself about who you are so that you aren't trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you've been telling yourself about your life.

Take a risk. Maybe our pasts don't define us but inform us.

often different parts of ourselves want different things, and if we silence the parts we find unacceptable, they'll find other ways to be heard.