Quotes About Identity

he cut through the 21st Century Gallery, past the big plastic statues of Pluto and Mickey, animal headed gods of lost America

But boys will be boys, even the ones who are only girls dressed up: That's one of the rules of the world.

The radio was playing "Easter Parade" and I thought, But this is Jewish genius on a par with the Ten Commandments. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and then He gave to Irving Berlin "Easter Parade" and "White Christmas."… Easter he turns into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow.

Doctor Spielvogel, this is my life, my only life, and I'm living it in the middle of a Jewish joke! I am the son in the Jewish joke—only it ain't no joke!

A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.

I am not I; pity the tale of me.

All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that Hemingway's mother dressed him as a girl until he was six years old?" I was not offended by Claudia's glib psychological theory. Like many glib psychological theories, it struck me as fundamentally correct.

God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.

Sometimes I feel like the most liberal person among conservatives, and sometimes like the most conservative among liberals.

For most of my life i have been adored by fools and hated by people of good sense, and they all make up stories about me in which I am either a saint or a whore. But I am above these judgments, I am a Queen.

This is important: he sees me in a certain way, a way he will never deviate from. In the end, love was only possible because he saw me not as who I was, but as the person I would become.

Je dis : pourquoi moi ? Il dit : parce tu n'es pas du tout comme les autres, parce qu'on ne voit que toi sans que tu t'en rendes compte. Il ajoute cette phrase, pour moi inoubliable : parce que tu partiras et que nous resterons.

I also know how much of yourself you have to leave behind in order to look like everyone else.

The question that imposed itself: Why me? The image doesn't fit: my thick glasses, my stretched-out blue Nordic sweater, the student head slaps, the too-good grades, the feminine gestures. Why me? He says: Because you are not like all the others, because I don't see anyone but you and you don't even realize it.

a sense of not belonging is something one inherits.

Of course I "prefer boys." But I'm not capable of saying this sentence out loud yet. I discovered my orientation very young, at eleven years old. Even then I knew.

Je dis : c'est pour cette raison que tu as précisé que tu avais quelque chose d'étranger ? Il dit : oui, les yeux sombres, la peau brune. Et ce sentiment, qui sait, de ne pas être tout à fait à sa place, ici, d'être une sorte de déraciné, comme si on pouvait avoir le déracinement en héritage.

En France, des centaines de milliers de personnes défilent pour défendre l'école privée, qu'ils appellent l'école libre. La captation, l'usurpation de cet adjectif me rend fou. Ma conscience politique s'éveille.

Those who have not taken this step, who have not come to terms with themselves, are not necessarily frightened, they are perhaps helpless, disoriented, lost as one is in the middle of a forest that's too dark or dense or vast.

Et puis, il l'a dit, c'est toute sa vie : on ne s'excuse pas de ce qui fait sa vie.

Il serre la jolie poupée dans ses bras maigres, il la serre comme si sa vie en dépendait, il la serre comme il serrerait une vraie petite fille, silencieuse, tranquille et éternelle, une petite fille de l'aube et de l'orient. Son unique petite fille. La petite-fille de Monsieur Linh.

Tout ce qui n'est pas griffé n'existe pas. Les jeunes placent leur cerveau et leur âme dans un petit crocodile vert, dans trois bandes noires, dans une virgule horizontale : ils n'existent pas en dehors. Lacoste, Adidas et Nike sont devenus la trinité d'une religion creuse, aux saints chaque jour plus nombreux, et qui condamne les hommes à se déguiser en hamburger pour gagner leur vie. Gagner sa vie, mais laquelle ?

El anciano se llama Linh. Es el único que lo sabe, porque el resto de las personas que lo sabían están muertas.

An old man is standing on the after-deck of a ship. In his arms he clasps a flimsy suitcase and a newborn baby, even lighter than the suitcase. The old man's name is Monsieur Linh. He is the only person who knows this is his name because all those who once knew it are dead.